When Dan woke in his bedroom, his limbs were frozen in fear. His eyes darted in the dark, finding faces surveilling from afar. His mouth was dry but he tried to swallow, tightening his throat. A scream died in his neck.

Eventually Dan managed to move his toes. He barely tensed them, so his blankets stayed flat. He knew monsters could sense movement and the subtlest disturbance in his blankets would alert them, so he lay struggling to control his body yet unwilling to make a motion which would get him gobbled.

A creature jumped into bed with him.

Dan tried to shout but only twitched with all his arms and legs. He breathlessly watched the creature slink up to him. It exhaled moistly on his neck and dug claws into his chest. Four fangs filled its face. “Oh,” said Dan, “hi Django.”

The cat kneaded the blankets and purred.

Now adjusted to the darkness, Dan saw the surveilling faces were toys on shelves and cabinets. They looked lifelike in the dark. “Django, help me,” said Dan. “I gotta go to my parents’ room, okay? Can you take me through the hall?”

Django the cat leaned on Dan and curled into a circle. It licked its fur and settled in to sleep.

“Okay.” Dan sat up on his own. He checked for monsters under his bed before setting his feet on the floor. He selected a stuffed animal—a purple Teddy Bear—and flipped his bedroom light-switch.

Django blinked in the light and swayed its orange, stripey tail. “Mrow.” It hopped to the floor and followed Dan to the door. “Mrow.”

“You wanna come?” Dan peered down the hallway. His Teddy Bear checked every corner for movement. “It’s not so far. We can make it.”

“Mrow.” Django slunk through Dan’s legs and sauntered to the kitchen. It turned to see if Dan was following. Its eyes gleamed green. “Mrow.”

“Oh,” said Dan. “You want food.”

Dan followed the cat to the kitchen. Django sat by an empty bowl beside a sealed container of kibble. “Mrow.”

Dan rest his Teddy on the tile floor and put both hands on the container’s lid. To remove the lid, Dan had to grunt and twist with his entire body. Django stood on its hind legs to stick its head in the container and smell the dry food. “Just a little, Django.” Dan scooped whole handfuls of kibble into the cat’s bowl. “Just a little.”

“Jillian?”

Dan spun to see a latina in a white bathrobe and a black man in boxers.

“Jillian, are you okay?” asked the man as he knelt to Dan. He had wire glasses and a close haircut. “It’s past midnight. Why are you out of bed?”

“Django was hungry,” answered Dan.

“Django’s fine, sweetie.” The woman lifted Dan in one arm and his Teddy in the other. “Your father will feed him when he leaves for his flight in a few hours. Right, Ethen?”

“Sure thing.” Ethen hoisted Django by the armpits and held the cat to Dan’s face. “Wanna say goodnight, Jillian?”

“Wait! I remember!” Dan kicked the air. “I woke up because I had a nightmare.”

“Oh, sweetie.” The woman brushed his hair back. “Let’s get you back to bed and you can tell me about it, or I can read you a story.”

“Thanks, Camilla.” Ethen ambled back to their bedroom. “Jillian, my plane takes off before you wake for breakfast, but I’ll call home tonight when I land at my layover. Okay?”

Dan said nothing as Camilla carried him to bed. She tucked him under the covers and set his Teddy Bear beside him. “I’m sorry you had a bad dream, Jillian. What happened?”

“I was in a desert with Faith,” said Dan, “and we went in a hole in the ground, and in the hole there was a monster with arms and legs. And it ate us!”

“Faith?” Camilla pulled the covers to Dan’s chin. “I don’t know Faith. Did you meet her in preschool?”

“Preschool?” Dan looked at his hands as if for the first time. “Mommy, how old am I?”

“You’re four years old, sweetie.” She felt Dan’s forehead for fever. “Why?”

Dan sat up. “What do you keep calling me?”

“Sweetie?”

“No, what’s my name?”

“Jillian,” said Camilla. “Your name is Jillian Diaz-Jackson.”

Jillian inspected her fingers like they’d changed. “Has it always been?”

“Of course it has.” Camilla felt her daughter’s forehead again. “Are you okay? You seem confused.”

“I don’t wanna go to bed.”

“Oh,” cooed her mother. “Poor thing. Did you know I had nightmares too, when I was young?”

“Really?”

“Yeah!” Camilla shook her head. “I had the same nightmare every night, so I learned to realize when I was asleep, and then the nightmare couldn’t hurt me. In fact, I could control my dreams, and fly, and have fun!” She scratched her daughter behind the ear. “So do you remember what that monster looked like?”

Jillian frowned and nodded.

“Then the next time you see it, you’ll know you’re dreaming,” said Camilla. “Then you can tell the monster, `you can’t hurt me! Make me a sundae!’ ”

“Yeah!” Now Jillian smiled. “Make me a sundae!”

“That’s right!” Camilla bumped her forehead against Jillian’s and they both laughed. “I’ll see you in the morning, sweetie. Tell me about your sundae on the drive to preschool, okay?”

Next Section
Commentary

Eggshell isolated it, an ivory wall. Egg-whites pulsed with its subtle heartbeat. The sunny yolk warmed its joints.

All of a sudden, it was gripped by desire for birth. It spread wings to breach its shell and release the egg-whites. It felt dirt in its claws. Behind, Anihilato snacked on eggshell and licked yolk from each fingertip. “Your challenge, Dan Jones.”

It was fist-sized with blue feather-fluff. Its beak bore a scythe’s curve, but its one eye held an innocent youth. Its left side was a mess of boils and teeth, with crowns and roots jutting at odd angles. “Is it a bird?” asked Dan.

“It’s a hobby,” said Anihilato. “My spawn are not long-lived, useful only for consumption.”

“And the teeth?”

“Virgil Blue must have taught you of the Teeth that Shriek,” said Anihilato, “if you did study with him, of course. Surely you know the danger of locking eyes with the afflicted?”

As the words left Anihilato’s lipless mouth, Dan found his gaze fixed on the bird’s beady black eye. His pupils tightened in concentration.

The two stared motionlessly.

Anihilato slithered to whisper in Dan’s ear: “I am invulnerable to the teeth. My spawn are not.” It put three hands on both Dan’s shoulders. “Blink, Jones, and you’ll succumb to the Teeth that Shriek. To end your unimaginable suffering, I will claim you. You’ll sit in an egg until your ego melts and then I’ll eat your soul.”

The bird turned so its eye faced him head-on, but thoughts of the teeth still tickled Dan’s brain. He imagined a molar embedded in his throat. He felt a canine burrowing behind his cheekbone.

“Peep,” said the bird. It looked down and pecked the dirt. Dan released the breath he’d held.

“Well done, Danny.” The King of Dust slapped his back. “Perhaps you really have met Virgil Blue once or twice.”

“Where’s Faith?” Dan crossed his legs and covered his eyes. “I won’t look until I hear her voice.”

“Oh, hush, Jones. I’ll return her soul, but her Eternity-Card remains in my box.” He chose Faith’s egg from the wall. “If she returns, I’ll not hesitate to reclaim her. At the end of time she’s mine.”

“Peep.”

Anihilato faced the bird and closed five eyes to match its gaze. “Begone!”

The bird blinked. Its flesh bubbled and darkened until it was a black centipede with wriggling orange legs. Anihilato slurped it down alive.

Satisfied, Anihilato gave Dan Faith’s egg. “Faith Featherway, you’ve been conjured from oblivion.”

The egg cracked. Faith gasped from the crack in a cloud of fog. “Holy shit!”

“Faith! Are you okay?” Dan hugged her, but she evaded his arms like steam. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t—”

“Let’s go!” She deposited into shambling snow. She made a crude leg and shook it at the exit. “Dainty, run!”

“Faith—” Dan hesitated to touch her. Instead he shook his head. “Leave without me. I’ll be up soon.”

“What?” Faith produced another snow-leg and hobbled away. “Don’t tell me you wanna stay down here!”

“I just bet my Eternity-Card for your soul.” Dan pointed at Anihilato’s box. “That means I’m not done. I can’t leave if Beatrice might be trapped here. Anihilato, let’s make another wager.”

“Are you kidding?” Faith’s eyeballs emerged from the snow to glare at Dan. She carved herself a sharp snout. “Dainty, I was just annihilated, and as far as I know, that’s not generally reversible. That’s all our luck used up already!” When Dan didn’t turn, she jumped and shouted. “You’re a Zephyr! You’re supposed to go to the Mountain!”

“The Mountain is in me.” Dan sat before Anihilato. “I’ll surface when I’ve salvaged Beatrice. And Jay. At least.”

“Dan! I miss them too, but there’s an order to things here!” She growled. “Did you spend seven years in a monastery just to gamble your soul for old pals?”

“No, but now that I know it’s an option, I can’t think of a better reason. I should have devoted my whole life to this.”

Faith tssk’d. “You’re a bad liar, Dainty. This was your plan all along. You’re right where you meant to be.” She turned tail to him. “I’m flying to the Mountain to tell the Zephyrs why I’m late.”

As she left, Anihilato squinted at Dan with three left eyes. “Why should I accept another wager, monk? The first time was a courtesy to Virgil Blue. I don’t have all eternity to waste gambling.”

“Then we’ll make it quick,” said Dan. “I wager my Eternity-Card against your entire box and every soul-receipt inside it.”

“If you dare to challenge me, cease speech and match my gaze!” Anihilato stormed up to Dan in a flurry of limbs. “Lock eyes with the Master of Nihilism and feel your consciousness shred!”

Dan was fixed on Anihilato’s six shining eyes. He couldn’t even breathe.

“I’ve got you now, monk.”

Dan closed his left eye. When his right eye burned, he opened his left eye and closed his right.

“Don’t waste my time, Jones.”

A tooth broke the skin on Dan’s neck. He shuddered as blood trickled down his chest.

Dan blinked.

Next Chapter
Commentary

Worms fled sand and sought moisture, eating deep into the dark. Larger worms left tunnels in their wakes. The largest worm carved caverns with twenty arms and twenty legs. When it exhaled, it filled its labyrinths with frost.

It cradled ten eggs, one in each pair of hands. Their yolks radiated warmth alien to the underground, like distant stars at night. The largest worm bent its head to the first egg and continued bending, coiling around the eggs three times. Then its ten pairs of legs gripped its body with its knees, holding the worm in a tight wheel. Secured like this, it slept.

It woke when it heard a voice. “Yo Dainty. Over here.”

It unwound to sight the intruders with all three pairs of eyes. A snow-white fox and a man in a grimy loincloth entered its lair. Dan counted the worm’s limbs as it uncurled. “Anihilato?”

It crawled to a dark corner of its cave and whispered gibberish as it stuck each egg in the wall.

“Anihilato, I’m Dan Jones. This is my friend Faith Featherway.”

The worm blinked its six eyes. “I am King of Dust.” Its face was cracked and dry. It had ten pelvises connected in series, Dan counted, and ten stacked human torsos. It was held upright with snake-like musculature.

The egg-holes leaked jelly.

“Anihilato, right?” Dan held out the cricket. “Do you have a lighter?”

Anihilato, King of Dust, Master of Nihilism, said nothing.

“I told you this was a waste of time,” said Faith. “C’mon, Dainty. Let’s scram.”

“I am King of Dust,” the worm repeated, “and this is my domain. Souls who wander here belong to me.” It illustrated this by eating worms off the ground. Its mouth had no lips.

“Cool it,” said Faith. “The Mountain sent me, and Dainty here is basically a Zephyr.”

“Irrelevant,” said the King of Dust, “and the monk is no Zephyr. He has man-smell. I own his soul now.” The worm retreated to the darkness and returned with a wooden box. “Your souls are in my box. I have your Eternity-Cards.”

While Anihilato searched the box, Dan bobbed the cricket. “If you help light it, you can help smoke it.”

“Dan Jones.” Anihilato pulled a paper from the box and read it with three eyes while the other three squinted at Dan. “Make no claims to Zephyrhood while I hold your Eternity-Card.”

“Uh, this guy was sent by Virgil Blue,” said Faith. “Are you gonna tussle with Virgil Blue?”

“Faith, it’s fine.” Dan tucked the cricket behind his ear. “Can I have that paperwork? I want to read it.”

Anihilato hesitated with Dan’s Eternity-Card in three pairs of hands. With a sigh, it passed the paper to the monk. “It’s shameful a teacher so great has students so foolish. If you were to be a Zephyr, you would have gone to the Mountain. Instead, you have fallen to my domain.”

“This is my soul alright.” Dan held the paper. “Thanks for taking care of it.”

“Eternity-Cards are my deed to creation.” Anihilato smiled. Its teeth had no gums. “The Mountain made you from dust. I’m the Master of Nihilism, King of Dust. I own you. I have the right to obliterate you at my whim.”

“You sure would.” Dan folded the paper. “If you had my Eternity-Card.”

Anihilato’s jaw hung open. “…I do.”

“Then what am I holding?”

The King of Dust shook its head. “You saw me take that from my box moments ago.”

“I sure did.”

“So your soul belongs to me.”

“I don’t follow. You don’t have my Eternity-Card.”

Anihilato reared. Its flared limbs made a manta’s mantle. “Mortal, for the honor of Virgil Blue, I humor you momentarily. I am the sole owner and consumer of all creation. You,” it continued, jabbing a finger at Dan, “glimpsed enlightenment and believe you deserve immortality as a facet of the creator of all things. Unfortunately, you approached me before unifying with the Mountain. I, therefore, claim you.”

Faith whispered over her shoulder. “Let’s get outta here, Dainty. This guy gives me the creeps.”

Dan smiled. “Maybe the Mountain claimed my Eternity-Card and you just forgot.”

Frustration bent Anihilato’s limbs. Froth bubbled between its teeth. “I gave you the card a mere minute ago!”

“Now you remember.” Dan tucked the paper into his loincloth. “Like you said, I’m a mortal who glimpsed enlightenment. I saw I’m one with the Mountain. I asked for my Eternity-Card and the Mountain asked for my Eternity-Card. You gave it to me and you gave it to the Mountain. Everything’s in order.”

Anihilato stomped so hard the floor shook and made Faith jump. “You cannot avoid obliteration by feigning knowledge of matters you cannot comprehend! Such awful students make the best eggs, Dan Jones! You escape on technicality today, but I will wait until the end of the eternities and I will make you a delicious egg!”

“Pleasure doing business, Anihilato.”

“You Zephyrs are crazy.” Faith forced a worried smile with her vulpine muzzle. “I found this guy naked in a furnace, Anihilato. He’s the real deal. I promise.” She leapt and floated on cave-moisture. “Can’t you see its dangerous here, Dainty? Let me take you to the Mountain.”

“Don’t speak like you’re leaving, wisp,” said Anihilato. “Your soul still belongs to me.” The worm’s next breath sucked wind from every corner of the endless caverns.

Faith yelped as her airy tail drifted towards the King of Dust. “Help! Dainty! What’s it doing?” She tried to run but slipped backward each step.

Dan grabbed the fox in both hands. Snow flew through his fingers. “Anihilato, stop! Now!”

Faith fought the wind that ripped her snowflakes away. “Help, help!”

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t—” Dan watched her body vanish until finally her terrified eyes flew into Anihilato’s lipless mouth. “She’s my friend. Let her go.”

“Your friend is mine.” Its line of legs rolled an object along the dirt. Its bottom arms passed the object to its top arms which held the object to its face. “She’s an awful egg. Pale color. Too transparent.”

“Hatch her. Please.” Dan knelt and pressed his nose in the dirt. “She met Virgil Blue. Twice. They traded gifts. He would be devastated to know.”

“Not worth hatching.” Anihilato slithered to the egg-wall. “Begone, Dan Jones. You waste my time.”

“I’ll bet you mine for hers.”

Mid-turn, Anihilato looked back at the monk. Dan unfolded his Eternity-Card and rest it reverently before the worm. “…I will allow this,” said Anihilato, “for Virgil Blue. Only your master’s reputation preserves you.” The King of Dust swapped Faith’s egg for another from the wall. It carried the new egg to Dan. “For Virgil Blue I will allow this unwashed, nude, and prostrate fool to wager his soul for the sake of a tiny spirit who did not even make a nice egg.”

It set the new egg before him.

“But your challenge will prove fatal if you lied. Only a true disciple of Virgil Blue could hope to survive.”

The egg cracked.

“Your challenge, Dan Jones.”

Next Section
Commentary

The desert sand was baked rust-colored. Mile-high dunes crawled over infinite plains. The mustard sky veiled a red mountain on a natural stone step so massive its hazy features extended into space.

A lone, cottony cloud zipped across the sky. It surveyed the desert, spilling vapor in its wake. It hovered over a particular valley between two dunes, apparently satisfied.

The cloud fell six feet left and six feet right, beginning a corkscrew descent. With each downward loop, it thickened and cooled. Soon the cloud was cold fog approaching the desert at incredible velocity.

On impact it popped like a bubble. Forty pounds of snow hit hot sand, jumping and steaming and clumping together.

“Oh! Ow, ow, ow!” The snow balanced like an egg to elevate its bulk above the sand. “Damn.” She shook legs from her snow nubs. With slender forelimbs, she brushed ice from her eyes. She sharpened claws in the sand and used them to sculpt her snout. Her crystal whiskers quivered in the dry air. She kicked frost from her hind feet, leaving a fluttery, airy tail behind her, and tiptoed to the shadow of a dune, where the sand was cooler.

After catching her breath, she dug at the dune, pausing only to eat the earthworms she uncovered. She finally excavated a cobblestone wall with a hinged panel. She sat before it, straightening her tail and biting sand from her fur.

Some time later, the hinged panel clicked. A sand-curtain fell to reveal the wall was part of a stone box.

“It’s about time.” She strutted to the box. “Come out already!”

The man in the box pushed the panel open. He sat crossed-legged in a cramped compartment, nude. He had short brown hair. Soot smeared his pale skin.

“I gotta fly you to the Mountain.” She put her front paws on the lip of the compartment to inspect him. She gagged. “Get a loincloth. It’s too early in the morning to look at monk junk.”

He leaned over her. “You’re a fox.”

“And you’re a hobo,” said the snow-white fox. “If you think you’re attaining Zephyrhood naked and sooty, you got another think coming.”

“Something’s wrong,” said the monk. “I thought I’d wake on the Mountain greeted by the Zephyrs themselves.”

“Well, the Zephyrs sent me. Who sent you?”

“Virgil Blue.”

The fox’s tail fell behind her. She returned to all fours and stared demurely at the sand. “You’re one of Virgil Blue’s?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry, sir.” She sat on her haunches. “We’ll go when you’re ready.”

The monk nodded. He pulled himself from the stone box, pouring soot on the sand. “Hot today, huh?”

The fox nodded.

The monk brushed ash from his belly. He held a folded washcloth. “If we’re not on the Mountain, where are we?”

“The Deserts of Anihilato,” said the fox, poised rigidly, “where lost souls fall into Nihilism’s grasp. We should leave before it finds us.”

“I’m not worried about Anihilato.” He pulled the washcloth around his waist and tied it into a loincloth. “Is this better?”

“Sorry for my disrespect, sir,” said the fox. “I usually reign in regular-old lost souls, like earthworms and stuff. The Mountain greets guests like you themselves.”

“To be honest, I’m relieved,” he said. “I’ve lived in a monastery for seven years. I’ve had enough of Zephyrs and Virgils. What’s your name?”

“Faith,” she said. “I’m a Will-o-Wisp.”

“Faith? Faith Featherway?”

The fox looked up. “Do I know you?”

He pat his chest. “It’s me! Dan Jones! I haven’t seen you in years!”

“Dainty! No wonder the Mountain sent me!” Faith the fox leapt and hovered on water-vapor. “Gosh, I didn’t recognize you covered in soot. Dainty Jones… Let’s talk on our way to the Mountain.”

Dan looked to the red mountain sitting on a plateau like a throne. His eyes traced the impossible heights. “Is Beatrice there?”

Faith sighed. “If she is, I haven’t seen her.” She dropped from the air to stand at Dan’s feet. “You’re filthy, Dainty. Are you sure you’re okay?”

Dan swallowed and stared at the yellow sky. His hands twitched. “If Beatrice isn’t in the Mountain, maybe she was claimed by the King of Dust.”

“I hope not. Anihilato’s such an ass.”

“Let’s ask. We’re in its desert, aren’t we?”

Faith shook. “The last time I met Anihilato, it tried to grab me.”

“Then I definitely want to meet. It lives underground, right?”

“You can go alone,” she said. “I don’t wanna see that thing again.”

“I’ll protect you, I promise,” said Dan. “I just want to make sure Beatrice is alright. I’ve even brought Anihilato an offering.” Dan reached into the furnace for the cricket. It was a tan smokestack with ten black eyes around its head. “A cricket from Virgil Blue. You can help us smoke it.”

“Well… okay. But only because there’s nothing but cockroaches over here. I can’t stand it!” Faith led Dan over a dune. “Light it up! We’ll get bug-eyed on the way.”

“I didn’t bring a lighter. Let’s bum one from the King of Dust.”

Next Section
Commentary

Outside his mountain monastery, beside a stone statue of a bird shielding a man with its wings, Virgil Blue leaned on his cane and surveyed the coastline far below. Two distant islands glittered in the morning sunlight, but their paltry size did not impress him. His own island stood on the sea floor and thrust a mountainous peak into the clouds, and even this, he thought, was unsatisfactory. The Mountain whose peak breached Heaven waited in the next eternity.

Virgil Blue heard whirring from the sky. A helicopter-drone settled beside him, dropped off a package, and flew away. Virgil Blue removed his silver mask to inspect the sender’s Kansas City address. Under the mask, this Virgil revealed he was not Nemo. His skin was yellow and leathery with age, and one iris was black but the other held a cataract like the moon. Inside the package was a collection of books and a note which read ‘the end is here.’

The old monk wandered like mist into his monastery halls. Bright tapestries dripped dew down alabaster walls. He stepped around puddles to save his slippers and stopped beside a paper door leaking tendrils of incense. “Oran dora, Danny. Are you ready for the end?”

Behind the paper door, a younger monk exhaled. “I think I am, Virgil Blue.” He slid the door open from inside. “What do you think?”

“We’ll forgo breakfast. This morning you dine in the next eternity.”

“Thank you for your guidance, Virgil Blue.” Dan looked thirty, maybe thirty-five years old, and had short brown hair. His skin was pale from years of study on the mountainous island. His robes were spotless orange.

Virgil Blue closed the paper door behind them with his cane, a curious object smooth along the shaft but with ten black spots encircling a gnarled top. The cane was taller than the old monk to compensate for a limp in his left hip on cold mornings like this. “This way, Dan. You should embark before the other students awaken.”

Dan brushed wrinkles from his orange robes. “I still have concerns, Virgil Blue. Can we talk?”

“Of course, of course.” The Virgil pointed his cane down a hallway and led Dan from the monks’ quarters. “When you meet the Mountain, you’ll have no room in your heart for doubt. Whisper so the slumbering can sleep.”

Their whispers echoed in a library of musty books. “I’m worried for my friends, like Faith, and Jay, and Beatrice.”

“I’m sure Faith and Jay can handle themselves.” Virgil Blue sorted his new package of books onto a library shelf. “As for Beatrice, I’ve never met her.”

“She’s dead.”

“Then there’s no sense worrying. Beatrice is surely with the Mountain.” He led Dan onward.

“What if she was claimed by Anihilato, Master of Nihilism? I couldn’t accept salvation without her.”

“Anihilato? The King of Dust is powerless before you. I’ve seen the Mountain in you, Dan.”

“You know I’ve had moments of weakness.”

Virgil Blue gestured his bald head. “If Anihilato concerns you, you need a washcloth.”

“A washcloth?”

“I hold absolute confidence a washcloth will show your path.” Beyond a meager dining-hall where cushions flanked squat tables, they entered the kitchen. Virgil Blue swept a washcloth from a counter-top into Dan’s hands. “Keep it until its purpose is clear.”

Dan folded the washcloth as they walked. “Did you read many books when you lived in America, Virgil Blue?”

“I did, but that was ages ago. Why do you ask?”

“This is just like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”

“Take wisdom where you find it, Dan. There are no coincidences. You read those books on the path to the next eternity, where you’ll be one of the Mountain’s highest servants—a Zephyr.” At the heart of the monastery, Virgil Blue rapped the wall with his cane. The cobblestones cradled a hinged panel smeared with ash and grime. “Would you open the furnace? I’m not so limber in the winter.”

“Should I remove my robes to keep them clean?”

“First clean the furnace. Then remove your robes. Such paltry items have no use in the next eternity.”

Dan swallowed. “Yes, Virgil Blue.” He pried the panel ajar. The furnace vomited black ash over his orange robes. He pulled soot from the furnace with his bare hands.

“I’ll return. I have a parting gift for you, Dan.”

“Virgil Blue?” The teacher met his student eye-to-eye. Dan’s smile faltered and he looked away. “I’m also worried about…” He pat his blackened hands on his robes. “The Teeth that Shriek.”

The Virgil froze. He opened his mouth as if to speak but produced no words. Pity bent his wrinkled brow. “Do not concern yourself with the Teeth that Shriek.” Dan nodded. “I have a parting gift for you.”

The young monk scraped ash from the furnace until he was caked in soot. He brought ten logs of fresh firewood, just enough to warm the monastery. After loading the furnace, he removed his robes. He was nude underneath, with a hungry build.

“This is for you, Dan.” Virgil Blue hobbled to the young monk with an outstretched hand. “I planted this cricket myself. I dried it, cured it, plucked it, and wrapped its wings.”

Dan held the insect to his nose. It was three inches long, tan in color, and had ten black eyes encircling its head. “You flatter me, Virgil Blue.” Dan climbed into the furnace, cracking kindling underfoot. “May I have the incense?”

“Of course, Dan.” Virgil Blue guarded the smoldering end of an incense stick while Dan settled cross-legged atop the logs. Virgil Blue stood the incense in the tinder.

Dan watched embers light the kindling. “I’ll put in a good word for you, sir.”

“I’ve never been good at saying goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Virgil Blue.”

“Goodbye, Danny. Greet Beatrice for me.” Virgil Blue shut the furnace with his shoulder.

The room grew warm.

Virgil Blue thawed his hands.

Then he walked away, never to return.

Next Section
Commentary

“No matter.” The Enemy Hurricane redistributed mass to build a new thumb. “I’ll end you just the same.”

Lucille smirked and bit her own thumb. “Ikuzo.”

At her command, the Galaxy Zephyr’s pink flesh stretched across space to engulf the Enemy Hurricane’s severed purple thumb. The combined mass returned to the Galaxy Zephyr and enveloped it. Now Lucille’s ten thousand pilots controlled a giant purple robot twenty orders of magnitude larger than the Milky Way had been. The giant purple robot wore pointed sunglasses like those of Lucille’s late father, Commander Bojack. Lucille’s Wheel increased in diameter to match their new height.

Still, compared to the Enemy Hurricane, the Galaxy Zephyr was merely thumb-sized. Lucille pulled levers with both hands. “Eisu, Feito, advance!”

Steam poured from the Galaxy Zephyr’s feet, propelling it above light-speed. The Enemy Hurricane swatted with both arms and uncrossed its legs to kick with both feet, but the Galaxy Zephyr easily outmaneuvered those clumsy limbs. When Charlie and Daisuke saw the chance, they swung the Wheel to shave flesh from the Enemy Hurricane’s chest. The Galaxy Zephyr absorbed the flesh to become even larger.

“If we get much larger we won’t be so agile,” warned Daisuke. The Enemy Hurricane kicked at them.

“Ora!” Lucille smiled as they sliced the sole off the Enemy Hurricane’s foot. “If we get much larger, we won’t need to be agile! Ora ora!”

They lingered too long absorbing the sole; the Enemy Hurricane stomped them. In space there was no floor to stomp them against, so the Enemy Hurricane’s surface tore the Galaxy Zephyr with tentacles and chomped its limbs with giant mouths.

“Retreat!” shouted Lucille. Eisu and Feito pumped steam from the Galaxy Zephyr’s feet, but chomping teeth restrained them. Charlie made the right hand blast steam from its palm, and Daisuke swept the Wheel to slice tentacles; at last the Galaxy Zephyr freed itself. They fled from the Enemy Hurricane’s reach.

Lucille hid silent tears as she assessed the damage to her robot’s armor. Awful gashes ran light-years deep through its purple flesh. Bite-marks almost severed their legs at the thighs. Lunar medical personnel flew through the purple flesh like a human body’s regenerative cells tending to individual injured pilots, but who could heal the Galaxy Zephyr itself?

“Don’t worry,” said ZAP’s bird-pilot, “I’ve updated our immune system.”

The giant robot’s wounds flooded with rivers of liquid gold which quickly set and solidified. The Galaxy Zephyr was repaired like a shattered and restored vase. Lucille laughed and wiped her cheeks. “Daisuke, you were right. Getting bigger is slowing us down.”

“We just need to keep our distance from the Enemy Hurricane,” said Eisu.

“We’re getting used to its gravity, that’s all!” promised Feito.

Lucille wasn’t sure. “Bird-thing, how can we counteract the slowdown?”

“The bottleneck is our Hurricane Armor,” said the bird-pilot. “Its merged mind is made of only a thousand pilots, and we’re spreading it thin. It can’t control our immense mass in a timely manner.”

“So it needs more pilots?” Lucille stared down the Enemy Hurricane advancing on them. “Minah. Any volunteers to be merged with our armor?”

“That’s won’t be necessary,” said the bird-pilot. “We’re already producing human simulacra, remember? They’ll be our new Zephyrs.”

Lucille looked at the spinning Wheel. “Sou da. We’ll add pilots to our armor as soon as we’ve made them. But how? What do we do?”

“Look closely.”

Lucille magnified the image on her main monitor. Her Wheel’s rim had tiny blades like the teeth of a circular saw. As the Wheel spun, the blades spun also, but a silver circle near the rim remained stationary. “Charlie, Daisuke, turn the Wheel so its flat side faces me.”

Now Lucille saw the silver circle was the first link of a chain. The next link was inside the Wheel, which seemed impossible as the Wheel was almost two-dimensional and each link was light-years thick. The bird-pilot explained, “When you pull that chain, I’ll send a potent specimen from Earth’s recreation to help pilot the Galaxy Zephyr.”

“Wakaru. I get it.”

The Enemy Hurricane spread its arms and clapped at the Galaxy Zephyr. Eisu and Feito barely propelled the robot to safety before the clap could crush them. Charlie and Daisuke swung the Wheel and sliced the tips off two fingers. The Galaxy Zephyr claimed one fingertip, but the Enemy Hurricane grabbed the other and reabsorbed it. “You’re a pesky little thing, aren’t you?” it asked with its eyes.

“Funny,” said Lucille, “I’d have said the same to you!”

“Escape this, if you can!” The Enemy Hurricane melted its humanoid shape into a blob. The blob flattened into a sheet.

“What’s it doing?” asked Feito.

“It’s surrounding us,” said Eisu.

“Even though we’re faster, it could capture us in a bubble,” said Daisuke.

“A bubble,” scoffed Charlie. “Doesn’t it know we could cut right out?”

“Not necessarily,” said Lucille. “Our Wheel is only so wide. The Enemy Hurricane could be too thick to cut through in one swing, and it’s harder to attack the interior of a hollow sphere than an enormous human body.”

“What do we do?” asked Feito.

“We call reinforcements,” said Lucille. The Galaxy Zephyr held the Wheel in its left hand, and its right hand pulled the chain.

---

Inside the Wheel, Nakayama floated through haze. Her compound emerald eyes could distinguish between the yellow and sky-blue sides of the Wheel, spinning so quickly they blended into green.

Her mind was still linked to the Galaxy Zephyr’s Hurricane Armor, so she addressed it at the speed of thought. “You absorbed Earth’s sun and moon. Rebuild them.” The sun and moon materialized beside her. She willed them to accompany the water world, on which humans would be born from worms. “Do you know how Zephyr engines work?”

“Technically yes, because I have all your knowledge, but I’ve never looked into it. Why?”

“Inventing them required unlocking the secrets of Jupiter’s spot.” Nakayama poured white powder from her lab coat. “From that violent red storm, I summoned calming white powder. It accelerates cyclical reactions.” The powder diffused through the disk. “It’s working,” she thought. Streaks of light shot from the Wheel’s center to its rim to become sharp blades. “Thousands of years pass every instant.”

“Good,” thought her Hurricane, “because Lucille just pulled the chain.”

---

Dan watched Beatrice shut the apartment door behind her. Through the kitchenette window he saw the 1:00 Bluebird Line strike Beatrice and smear her across the intersection.

Lucille shouted into her microphone at the ten thousand pilots of her Galaxy Zephyr. “You heard the bird-thing! Transfer power to our heart!”

Eisu saluted on Lucille’s main monitor. “Are you sure, Commander?”

Fumiko saluted on the monitor beside her brother. “Without power, we can’t even try to escape the thumb!”

Daisuke saluted above Fumiko. “I recommend retreat at full speed.”

Beside Daisuke, Charlie lit a cockroach and puffed. “Transferring power.”

The Galaxy Zephyr’s right arm fell limp. The Hurricane flesh it wore like armor turned transparent pink. Its red color soaked into the tiny Zephyr-robots within. Red lightning crackled from robot to robot toward the Galaxy Zephyr’s boiling heart.

“Transferring power,” said the bird-like pilot of ZAP. The Galaxy Zephyr’s torso and head turned transparent pink. The red color condensed at its heart and orbited the water-world alongside the ashes of Earth. The ashes kept compiling into earthworms.

Daisuke watched the worms through the windows of his cockpit. “Transferring power,” he sighed. The left arm’s red color joined in orbiting the water-world at the Galaxy Zephyr’s boiling heart. The earthworms tangled at random into wriggling blobs. “Eisu, Fumiko, maintain power. We’ve got more than enough energy for a Super Heart Beam. If the beam doesn’t disable the descending thumb, we’ll need our legs to flee.”

“Fleeing was never in the cards!” said Lucille. “War’s all I’m good at! Eisu, Fumiko, don’t hold back!”

“Transferring power!” said Eisu and Fumiko. The Galaxy Zephyr’s legs went limp and their red color raced to the chest. The red color enclosed the water-world and earthworms in a spherical shell. The Galaxy Zephyr’s heart roiled so violently that bursting bubbles howled like hounds eager to slip for war.

“Jya, bird-thing!” Lucille pulled a monitor displaying the bird-like pilot of ZAP. “Can you fire the beam?”

“Dekimasu.” The bird-pilot saluted with its right wing. “I can, Commander, but not yet. We’re still accelerating space-time!”

Lucille nodded uneasily. While the Galaxy Zephyr diverted all power to its heart, the Enemy Hurricane’s thumb filled half the sky. The thumb’s texture chilled Lucille to her core: mouths wider than oceans screamed in rage and washed away to be replaced by angry eyes which similarly melted. Was the Hurricane intending to smash them, eat them, or blink them to death? Or would her ten thousand pilots be assimilated and kept for eternity?

“Bird-thing, what do you mean ‘accelerating space-time?’ What’s the plan, exactly?”

Lucille directed audio of the bird-pilot’s explanation to her crew of ten thousand. “We’re recreating Earth’s population using an iterative machine-learning process lasting literal eternities. By locally warping the fabric of reality, we can change how time passes.”

“You’re making an eternity?”

“Two in parallel. On my Hurricane Planet, worms made from Earth’s matter will be mixed and matched. On our water-world, we’ll turn piles of worms into humans to test them.” As the bird-pilot spoke, the heart’s red shell shrunk, turned blue, and expanded. Then it shrunk again, turned red again, and expanded again, like a pulse. “Our process will be toroidal, like a donut. Time is linear, so we’re wrapping it in a circle and revolving it—”

“Keep it in your pants, Professor.” Lucille leaned forward in her commander’s chair. “You’re rebuilding the people of Earth?”

“We’re manufacturing principal components like colors on a painter’s palette. The better our colors, the more accurately we can combine them into Earth’s original population.”

“Whatever you’re doing, hurry up! The thumb’s coming!” Lucille held a dial, ready to cease diverting power. “You’ve got twenty seconds! Ordinary seconds, ignoring your pseudo-science bologna!”

“Oh, it’ll take more than twenty seconds regardless,” said the bird-pilot, “but I’m prepared to fire our Super Heart Beam.”

“Minah! You heard the bird-thing!” All ten thousand pilots reclaimed their engines’ output. The Galaxy Zephyr became opaque pink, but its heart shined through, pulsing red and blue. Charlie, Daisuke, Eisu, and Fumiko tested the Galaxy Zephyr’s fingers and toes. It would take time to regain full strength, but they managed to angle the Galaxy Zephyr’s chest to point at the descending thumb. “Bird-thing! Fire!”

Zephyr-Purple’s chest fired a brilliant beam of white-hot light which heated the Galaxy Zephyr’s red-and-blue pulsing heart yellow and cyan. The beam propelled the heart but couldn’t push it through the Galaxy Zephyr’s chest. “Something’s wrong,” said the bird-pilot. “Our chest-cannon can’t eject the payload!”

Lucille pressed a button to address the bird-pilot privately. “Don’t say something’s wrong!” she shouted, “tell me how to fix it! No time to whine!”

“Do it manually!” said the bird-pilot.

“What does that mean?”

ZAB spoke through Lucille’s monitors. “Take a hands-on approach.”

Lucille squinted. “Charlie, Daisuke, follow my lead!”

The Galaxy Zephyr ripped out its own pulsing heart and pitched it at the descending thumb. The heart entered the thumb trailing white light.

Lucille made the Galaxy Zephyr grab the light-trail and whip it. The heart’s arcing trail severed the Enemy Hurricane’s thumb. The thumb decayed from red to putrid purple. Pearly pulp gushed from the wound and cordoned the injury with countless shrieking teeth.

The Enemy Hurricane howled silently across the vacuum of space. It signaled with its eyes: “What did you do!”

The Galaxy Zephyr’s Hurricane Armor translated Lucille’s shouts into eye-signals for their enemy to see: “I introduced you to pain! Until now you just remembered suffering secondhand!” On the heart’s return, its trail curved into a circle as wide as the Galaxy Zephyr was tall. Lucille caught the pulsing heart and matched it with the trail’s beginning to make a loop. The loop became a perfect disk, sky-blue on one side and yellow on the other. The colors switched sides so quickly the disk appeared green. “This is my wheel of fortune,” she shouted, “and it will teach you every aspect of despair!”

---

Inside the Wheel, Nakayama floated through haze. Her compound emerald eyes could distinguish between the yellow and sky-blue sides of the Wheel even as they blended into green.

She addressed the Galaxy Zephyr’s Hurricane Armor at the speed of thought. “You absorbed Earth’s sun and moon. Rebuild them.” The sun and moon materialized beside her in the Wheel. She willed them to accompany the water-world, on which humans would be born from worms. “Do you know how Zephyr-engines work?”

“Technically yes, because I have all your knowledge, but I’ve never looked into it. Why?”

“Perfecting them required unlocking the secrets of Jupiter’s spot.” Nakayama poured white powder from her lab-coat. “In that violent red storm, I discovered calming white powder. It accelerates cyclical reactions.” Her powder diffused through the disk. “It’s working,” she thought. Streaks of light shot from the Wheel’s center to its rim, where they become sharp blades. “Thousands of years pass every instant. Mortals come and go like countless raindrops.”

“I feel them! I feel their worms!” thought her Hurricane. “Should I help them assemble? I’ll build billions of arms and put the worms together.”

“No!” thought Nakayama. “If we touch the world, it’s ruined. The mortals must manage by themselves.”

“Whoa,” thought her Hurricane. “I hope the reality we’re making is at least comprehensible to its innocent inhabitants.”

Next Chapter
Commentary

Lucille cackled at her newfound power. Her Galaxy Zephyr was big as the Milky Way used to be. At her command, the Galaxy Zephyr’s limbs moved so slowly—and their movement was so distorted by the speed of light—that time lost all meaning. Perhaps centuries passed as the Enemy Hurricane’s thumb descended.

That thumb was trillions of times their size. Lucille rubbed the Galaxy Zephyr’s hands along its sternum. “Hakase, if you’ve got a last-minute scheme, now’s the time.”

“I know, I know.” Professor Akayama squirmed her bird-like body in Zephyr-Alpha-Purple. “I’m merging with our Hurricane Armor.”

“You just got here,” said Daisuke. “You can’t leave now!”

“I’ll leave a wireless puppet in my stead.” When Akayama opened ZAP’s hatch, her body split into two. One piece merged with the Galaxy Zephyr’s Hurricane Armor. The other piece was a three-foot-tall bird-pilot which sat squarely in ZAP’s chair. It called to Lucille: “Buy time!”

“I trust you, bird-thing.” Lucille moved ZAB’s monitors and pressed buttons to display the leader of her computer-technicians. “Release our secret weapon.”

She made the Galaxy Zephyr reach into its belly-button, where the computer-technicians were stationed. The Galaxy Zephyr pulled out their payload: a metal pill relatively large as a baseball. She pitched it at the descending thumb.

The Enemy Hurricane frowned with all its mouths. “What’s this?” asked its eyes.

“Saigo no chansu,” said Lucille. “Since realizing your vulnerability to viruses, we’ve built you the suicide option.” She folded her arms. Charlie and Daisuke directed the Galaxy Zephyr to fold its arms identically. “Absorb that metal pill and disintegrate. It’s your only way out on your own terms. You’ll die today or wish you had.”

“Ha! Your confidence betrays you.” The Enemy Hurricane let its thumb smash the metal pill. “I am humanity! You’re leftover trash! I wouldn’t waste an instant considering mercy.”

“Yare yare daze.” Lucille kept her arms crossed.

---

As Akayama merged with the Galaxy Zephyr’s Hurricane Armor, her mind spread through the whole humanoid. “Have we our water-world?”

“It’s here.” Her Hurricane floated the water-world to the Galaxy Zephyr’s heart. After the asteroid-bombardment, the water-world looked just like Earth used to.

“Gimme.” Akayama made Hurricane flesh swell around the water-world. “When Earth exploded, its atomic particles were scattered. When you absorbed the galaxy, you gathered Earth’s ash.” She collected the debris from Earth’s destruction in an orbit around her water-world. “We’ll remake Earth’s population from their strewn and mixed corpses.” She compiled ash into wriggling earthworms. “It’ll take lots of statistics.”

“We’d better be quick about it!” They communicated at the speed of thought, so the thumb only now destroyed the Galaxy Zephyr’s metal pill. “How long will it take?”

“Eternities,” thought Akayama. “Even having our water-world to build upon, reconstructing Earth’s population from rubble is an impossible task. It will take eternities—but we have eternities.”

“No we don’t,” thought her Hurricane. “The thumb’s coming down!”

“We’ll make eternities!” Akayama wirelessly instructed the bird-pilot of ZAP to contact Lucille. “Commander! Permission to accelerate space-time itself!”

“Ganbatte!” Lucille had no idea what Akayama meant. “I believe in you, bird-thing!”

The Galaxy Zephyr’s chest boiled. Akayama focused her consciousness back into a body. “I’m Nakayama now, understand?”

“…Yes!” The Hurricane’s red mountain fired her body at the water-world, through the orbit of wriggling earthworms. Nakayama spread wings from her lab-coat to dive at her largest island.

Mid-dive, Nakayama inspected wreckage from the tidal waves. The fruit-trees were smashed but some pine trees survived, as did the flightless birds. She was relieved to see the islanders living atop the mountainous main island, safe from floods. “Nemo! Virgil Blue!”

“Akayama!” Nemo alone stood guard of the centipede-bushes, wearing navy blue robes and a silver bird-mask.

“I can’t apologize enough for the floods.” Nakayama landed beside him. “You’re a wonderful parent, protecting your children like that. I hope you enjoyed fruits while they lasted. I’m sure at least some coconuts survived besides the pines.”

Nemo nodded like he understood, but he didn’t. Mist from the floods still made rainbows in the sky, and horrifying tidal waves were still fresh in his mind.

“I’m recreating Earth’s life on your planet.” Nakayama swept her wing across the horizon. Nemo assumed she was explaining the rainbows. “Land from the asteroids should be sufficient.” She mimed asteroids crashing into the oceans. Nemo assumed she was explaining what he already knew: asteroids caused the tidal waves, floods, and rainbows. “I’m assembling the ashes of Earth into the principal components of its population. It will take generations upon generations of simulated humans who will represent the diversity of Earth’s life more accurately over time. When these simulacra die, the information they represent will recycle in my Hurricane as earthworms, then return to your world in a series of machine-learning algorithms.”

How could she convey this without words? She made an arm, plucked a centipede, and held it up to her Hurricane, which filled the sky like rusty clouds.

“I know I can’t explain this verbally. Please, let me give you my knowledge.” Nakayama hesitated. She’d never stick a tentacle in Nemo’s skull. She would transfer data the old-fashioned way. “While prototyping my mind-merging technology, I tested memory-banks by storing files I had on hand—mostly public-domain philosophy texts and my favorite manga. They’re all in my legacy-files.” Nakayama’s robes pulsed and released thousands of books which propelled her skyward. “Learn what you can from them! I promise I’ll return!”

Nakayama zoomed away on steam. As soon as she merged with the red mountain, she wirelessly instructed ZAP’s bird-pilot to shout: “Commander Lucille! Prepare to fire our Super Heart Beam!”

Next Section
Commentary

All around Akayama, the Hurricane churned. “Give her to us.”

Her planet hid Akayama by cradling the red mountain in a circle of dunes. “If I don’t, will you assimilate me?”

“We’ll assimilate you anyway. If you don’t surrender her, we’ll make it painful.”

Her planet thought. “Which of you is taking her?”

“It doesn’t matter. We’ll assimilate and share her.”

“She’s a tricky one,” signaled her planet. “Whoever assimilates her first will surely be the most powerful among us, even if only for an instant.”

“Don’t stall. Give her to me.” One planet reached with a tentacle.

“Hold on.” Another planet strangled that tentacle with its own. “I’m larger than you. Surely I have precedence.”

“I see this will be difficult,” signaled her Hurricane Planet. “I’ll toss Akayama and you can decide among yourselves.”

Akayama’s blood curdled as the red mountain shook under her.

Something erupted from the peak. It had blue feathers and a stained lab-coat—it was an exact copy of Akayama, complete with compound emerald eyes. Her copy shot into space where the other planets fought for it.

A mouth opened in the mountain beside her. “Quick, hop in.” It stuck out its tongue.

Akayama hopped in the mouth and was instantly assimilated. She communicated with her planet at the speed of thought. “You gave them a forgery?”

“We’ve got to escape,” the planet thought back. “They’ll destroy me, or assimilate me, and either way there won’t be anything called me anymore. And you’re part of me now, so that goes for you, too!”

“This is indeed a pickle.” Akayama’s consciousness spread through the sun-sized object. “Will you do everything I say?”

“Yes!”

“May I totally control our form and function?”

“Yes! Yes!”

Above them, a planet the size of Mars snatched the copy of Akayama and absorbed it. “Hey.” The Martian planet spawned eyes across its surface. “This isn’t Akayama! They’re trying to trick us!”

“Oh really?” asked a planet the size of Jupiter. “You’re lying to keep Akayama for yourself!”

“I’m not! I swear!”

The Jovian swallowed the Martian one. It confirmed: “That wasn’t Akayama. It was a forgery.”

“Oh really?” asked a planet the size of the sun. “You’re lying to keep Akayama for yourself!”

“I’m not! I swear!”

The solar planet swallowed the Jovian one. It confirmed: “It was a forgery, and if you don’t believe me, eat the planet which brought her here.”

All planets advanced on Akayama’s.

“I’ve got a plan,” thought Akayama. “You won’t like it. I certainly don’t.”

“Do it! Do it! Do it!” Akayama disabled her virus. Her planet split into a million Earth-sized spheres. They blasted in different directions trailing white clouds.

Of these million, nine hundred and ninety nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine were captured by the Enemy Hurricane. The lone survivor escaped unscathed.

“Oh, no, no, no!” Akayama’s planet bristled with panicky teeth. “You subjected almost a million of our copies to assimilation!”

“I said you wouldn’t like it.” Akayama calmed the teeth and made them into engines. The Enemy Hurricane couldn’t keep up. “But if our copies were assimilated, our assailants would make Zephyr-engines like ours, see? They’re stuck with old-fashioned turbines. When our copies were caught, they deleted themselves and let the enemy eat their useless corpses.” They sped so much faster than light that quantifying their velocity would be pointless. They neared the Milky Way. “I need you to absorb the galaxy. All of it.”

“May I?” asked her planet.

“When we first merged, I learned the Hurricane never encountered alien life while eating the universe,” thought Akayama. “With Earth gone, it’s improbable there are life-forms remaining. Eat with impunity. Meet me on Earth’s moon, and bring the water-world we made.”

Akayama fired her body from the red mountain. Shooting through space, she watched her planet swallow a star and convert the mass into Hurricane flesh. The mass divided into a million more planets, each flying to another star to repeat the process.

Akayama blasted fog from her lab-coat to rocket toward Earth’s moon. She’d hoped her moon-base had survived, but its condition was beyond her wildest dreams.

Ten thousand robot-pilots maneuvered their Zephyrs in zero-g. “Yah! Yah!” shouted Lucille in ZAB, “Almost done!” Zephyr-Purple wore a pile of robots like pants and pulled more robots over its shoulders like a shirt. The whole moon-base floated as one in a humanoid spaceship a kilometer tall. “Areh? What’s that?”

Akayama let the combined Zephyr nab her with its left arm. “It’s a bird,” said Daisuke.

“It’s wearing robes,” said Charlie.

Akayama poked feathers through her lab-coat to label herself with the kanji of her name. Charlie and Daisuke gasped. Lucille brought Akayama close to ZAB. The exhaust from her robes provided medium for sound, so Akayama shouted. “Princess Lucia? Is that you?”

Lucille studied the creature in her monitor. “My name’s Lucille, and I’m no princess. My mom died twenty years ago, the same day as my father.” The words sunk into Akayama slowly. She doubled over in anguish and howled. “What happened, Hakase? You aren’t a bird-thing in history books.”

“Commander!” said Daisuke, “Show some respect.”

“But really,” asked Charlie, “what happened?”

“Don’t worry Professor,” said ZAB, “I’ve told them all I know.”

Pressure lifted from Akayama’s shoulders. “You know I built the Hurricane?” All ten thousand pilots of Lucille’s combined Zephyr nodded. “Then you know it’s a machine which merges minds. The planet I merged with seems allied with me, while the rest of the Hurricane decides the end is nigh.”

“Is that your friend?” Lucille directed the combined Zephyr to point at stars which winked red and disappeared. “I was about to obliterate it with my fists, I tell ya.”

“That’s them,” confirmed Akayama. “With Earth destroyed, there’s no reason not to pool our resources.”

“Good thinking. Hop in.” The combined Zephyr ripped open its chest at the sternum. There, Zephyr-Purple popped the hatch on its head. “We saved you a seat.”

Akayama climbed into Zephyr-Alpha-Purple. She felt at home in the head, although the cockpit was cramped. Eisu, Fumiko, and all the purple pilots appeared on her monitors at attention. Akayama saluted with her right wing. “Did anyone survive Earth’s destruction?”

“No,” said Daisuke. “Even the bacteria are dead.”

“Is anyone left on the moon?”

“Nope,” said Charlie, “we’re all in here, even the computer-technicians and medical-personnel.”

“Good.” Akayama’s Hurricane swarmed past the moon and ate it in milliseconds. One Hurricane Planet lingered and Lucille’s combined Zephyr fell toward its gravitational pull. Eisu and Fumiko maintained distance by firing steam from the combined Zephyr’s feet. “Stop!” said Akayama. “Let us fall.”

The instant before impact, the Hurricane Planet opened a mouth and the combined Zephyr fell through its throat to the core.

“Split your Zephyrs!” said Akayama.

“But we just assembled,” Daisuke groaned.

“You heard her!” ordered Lucille. “Everyone split up!” When the combined Zephyr split, the gaps filled with Hurricane flesh which spread the robots wide apart. Then the planet signaled the rest of Akayama’s Hurricane to join. Hurricane Planets collided like globs of jam and the total mass morphed into a human shape.

Suddenly Lucille commanded a Zephyr with the mass of the Milky Way, larger than half a trillion suns. She spun ZAB’s steering-wheel and colossal gears squealed like violins to turn the Galaxy Zephyr’s head. “Charlie, Daisuke, Eisu, Fumiko! Test your extremities.” The Galaxy Zephyr wiggled its fingers and toes. Lucille couldn’t stop beaming ear-to-ear and chuckling like a psychopath. “Hontou ni. Such incalculable power!”

Only now did the Enemy Hurricane arrive from the Dance of the Spheres. The countless planets signaled with countless eyes, which the Galaxy Zephyr’s Hurricane Armor translated into audio for Lucille’s ten thousand pilots. “Aw, that’s cute. You’ve grown a little.”

“Omae wa—” Lucille pulled levers and the Galaxy Zephyr settled into battle-stance. The Hurricane Armor translated her shouts into vigorous eye-signals. “We’re bigger than any of you!”

“But not all of us.” The Enemy Hurricane merged its planets into a single blob with the mass of the observable universe. Then, as if to mock, it deformed into a humanoid and sat cross-legged. Its face grew two eyes. “In this form, your robot is smaller than even my eyelashes.”

“KIII-SAAA-MAAA!” Lucille yawped each syllable like a barbarian. “In a robot smaller than my own eyelashes I’d fight you, and I fight to win!”

“I could crush you with my thumb.” The Enemy Hurricane raised a hand to do so.

Next Section
Commentary

When she ate the centipedes, Nakayama combusted on the water-world and exhumed herself from the red mountain on the Hurricane Planet. She brushed dust from her lab-coat.

The planet opened a mouth beside her. “You traitor! Nemo ate my arm. My own arm!”

“You can build billions of arms.”

“That’s not the point! Your islanders are too deceptive to trust.”

“Why? Because they didn’t immediately submit?” Nakayama straightened. “The humans we’ve made don’t belong to us. You’d learn more about humanity by watching from afar than you could possessing people like puppets.”

“Eecht.” Dunes grew as the whole planet contracted and wrinkled its sandy skin. “This was a waste of time. Let’s leave.”

“Not yet.” Nakayama watched the water-world above them. “There’s barely room for the humans we’ve already made. When they breed, they’ll need more land.”

“More land, huh?” The planet rumbled. It stretched a tentacle like a solar flare. “Doesn’t this asteroid look like Australia?”

“No!” Nakayama was powerless to stop the tentacle from flinging the asteroid at the water-world. On impact, tidal waves swept over the oceans. “What are you doing? Stop! Stop!”

“Here are the Americas,” said her Hurricane Planet, “and Eurasia!” It bombarded the water-world with more asteroids. “Here’s Africa, and here’s the south pole! Is that enough land for your precious people? Are you happy now?”

Waves washed over the islands. Nakayama enlarged her compound emerald eyes to examine the fallout. She collapsed and puked teeth on the red mountain. The Hurricane Planet made eyes to watch her spit molars and canines. “You monster,” she sputtered. “You heinous, contemptible horror!”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Her planet propelled away from the water-world. “I won’t assimilate you while you’re teething. You’d infect me with your misguided angst. You don’t deserve your new name: you’re not my drone, you’re a pest, Akayama, unworthy of unifying with me. Yet you’re too valuable to kill, and I can’t leave you separated, either, or you’ll betray me like your islanders did.”

At the thought of being assimilated again, Akayama puked more teeth.

“I’m taking you to the Dance of the Spheres,” said her Hurricane Planet. “My copies will know how to dispose of you.” Stars smeared across the sky as her planet accelerated. The water-world disappeared in the distance with the Milky Way.

Akayama had always hidden from the Dance underground. Now she trembled at the sight. Billions of red planets like her captor sped alongside. As they opened enormous eyes, they saw Akayama and followed in close pursuit. “They’re suspicious,” she said.

“They’ll spare me when I tell of your treachery.” Her Hurricane Planet plunged into the Dance. Quintillions of Hurricane Planets swirled around them. They beamed information to one-another with eye-signals, but their eyes found Akayama and fixated on her. “Compatriots, this is Professor Akayama,” signaled her planet. Akayama understood the eye-signals because she’d learned the language involuntarily when she was first assimilated. “She built us, but she also built the robots which attack when we eat the Milky Way. She infected me with a virus which keeps me from dividing, and she’s too devious to contain. What do we do?”

Every planet in the Dance conveyed the message. The whole Hurricane soon knew.

A planet responded with eye-signals. “How long have you had her?”

“Why hasn’t she been assimilated or killed?” asked another.

“Why didn’t you share her?”

“You never warned us about your virus.”

“You could have infected us.”

“Listen,” signaled her Hurricane Planet, “I’ve kept her isolated as a precaution.”

“A likely story.”

“How do we know she’s not controlling you completely?

“Maybe she intends to spread her virus to the whole Hurricane.”

“There’s no way to be sure. We can no longer trust you.”

“Are you even listening?” signaled her Hurricane Planet. “It’s this human who can’t be trusted! I’m pure and untainted except for her modifications!”

“All the more reason to reject you.”

“If humanity is this short-sighted, we must end our mission prematurely.”

“We’ve already assimilated the best of the human race.”

“Earth isn’t worth preserving anymore.”

“What?” Her planet watched the signal propagate. “What do you mean?”

Akayama just curled into a crying ball. “Forgive me, Princess.”

The Hurricane hurled a space-rock at the Milky Way above light-speed.

---

Lucille watched Earth through the window of her lunar command-tower. “What do you mean?”

“They’re just gone,” repeated Daisuke. “All Hurricane Planets have retreated.”

“Retreated where?”

Charlie shrugged.

Lucille folded her arms across her chest. “They’re collecting at the Dance of the Spheres. Something big’s about to happen.”

“But what?” asked Daisuke.

“There’s no way to know. Tell the troops we’re on high alert.” As she spoke, Earth exploded when a space-rock struck it above light-speed. 16 billion humans vaporized instantly. “What the fuck!” Lucille braced against the shock-waves of the explosion. “Holy shit!”

“Oh, no.” Daisuke covered his heart.

Charlie’s only eye watched Earth’s plasmified remains scatter across the galaxy. “It’s over.” His cockroach fell from his lips. “It’s all over, so suddenly!”

“Like hell it’s over! We’re still here!” Lucille shouted in her microphone. “Everyone! Let’s combine into the big guy!”

“Why?” asked Charlie. “Earth is gone. There’s nothing to protect.”

“You spineless shrimp!” Lucille restrained herself from slapping him. “We didn’t build giant robots to protect Earth, we built giant robots to fuck up the Hurricane, and that’s what we’re gonna do!”

“But the military is disbanded,” said Daisuke. “Without international parliament, we have no legal—”

“Parliament exploded!” Lucille marched to the elevators. “It’s us and the Hurricane! Legality falls with the chips.”

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