The next morning I was filled with an odd sense of catharsis, a letting-go of everything that had been bugging me. The unsure relationship between Addy and I hadn’t yet solidified, but we’d scooped out a place in the world and filled it with a part of ourselves. She was right that the peace wouldn’t last; however the shape of adversity was revealed, and the path of resolution pointed straight forward, into the heart of The Society and The Academy, where ordinary people were made into Custodians. I wasn’t afraid; I was empty of all anticipation. In its place, an everpresent nervousness sat in my chest, like an itty-bitty spider running laps around my heart.

  [Teleportation scheduled in Chicago Midway International Airport at: 03:45 PM]

  It was early in the morning, barely past seven. I’d gathered all my things. Between clothes, guns, and armor, there wasn’t enough to fill my spider backpack — there never was. Moe had expanded it after I’d agreed on a ten soulcoins a month salary, plus benefits if he was injured, maimed, et cetera, but every time I poked my head inside, a large yellow ‘under construction’ sign was shoved right into my face.

  He’s progressed faster after being surrounded by his family of fellow gnomes. I can hear the insides echo farther than ever before.

  Speaking of family, I had to say goodbye to my own. Akira drove us there in Clem’s fancy new SUV while she slept in the back. Her face was still sown with time bandages. His grip on the wheel wasn’t white knuckled, but I could tell that his silence was one of pondering and worrying.

  “Don’t take too long,” he blurted out as we arrived at my home, immediately making a face of regret. “Sorry. Take the time you need.”

  “I’ll try not to dawdle.” I hopped out the back and loped across the picket fence and lawn before coming to a stop right in front of the white-painted front door.

  The face of my favorite little gremlin greeted me as Lily opened the door.

  “MOOOM! SAM’S HERE!” she yelled.

  There was much fussing, greeting, plenty of hugs and a few words of smalltalk.

  “Mom, how’re you feeling?” I asked, seeing her walk spryly without any shortness of breath.

  “Asthma’s gone, my eyesight is better, I have energy, flexibility, creativity. Your father is loving it, if you know what I mean.”

  “Ew.”

  “Don’t you ew me, Lily. As Auntie Esche always says: Love is beautiful and should be celebrated and shared. Isn’t that right Samantha?”

  I gave Mom a thumbs up. “Love gud.”

  Lily made a face. “Well, it sucks if it's making my cool sister leave again for who knows how long.”

  “Awww, did you miss me that much?” I cooed, picking her up in a six-armed hug. “Your sister is a terrifying spider monster now, with More Spider Eyes than you can imagine. I could take terrible revenge for that one time you put mouthwash in my water bottle. Like this!”

  I stuck my tongue out at her, two round spider eyes on the tip blinking innocently at her.

  “EEEEE! Where did you get those from, why do you have even more arms, please don’t tickle me, nonono — eee!”

  I tossed her over my shoulder and turned to Mom.

  “Newfound confidence? I like it. I’m sure you’ll make some people very happy with it.”

  “That’s me. Trying my best to be a good daughter, living up to expectations, and so on.”

  Mom clicked her tongue. “Sammy, you don’t owe us anything.”

  “Darn. Guess I have to default to my second modus operandi: sharing with the world everything you taught me growing up.”

  “Aw, my daughter is all grown up and self-actualized. C’mere you.”

  We embraced in a hug. Halfway through, Dad joined in the kitchen. He smiled and gave me a nod. There was a level of trust there, as if he could see that I was chasing a dream I was trying to believe in. Maybe he was putting too much stock in me. I was still the same ol’ Sam, eager to please and afraid to disappoint. But as I said, I wasn’t afraid much today, just nervous.

  “Go get ‘em for what they did to my flower bed,” Dad said, shaking his hand in mock-anger.

  “I’ll turn the mimics into fertilizer, and the murderbots into nouveau art pieces to decorate your garden with.”

  “Wait, you’re fighting robots now? Like, from BattleBots?” Lily asked. “That’s so cool! Take me with, take me with!”

  “Murderbots? Sammy, are you sure you’ll be alright?” Aww, Mom was concerned for me. Alas, I promised not to take too much time with frivolities such as worrying about my imminent demise.

  “Whoops, gotta skidaddle.” Turning on a dime, I skipped out, then leaped up to grab the ledge of the roof, heaved myself up, deposited Lily on the small balcony adjacent to her room that overlooked the driveway, before skipping back down with a bounce in my step. “Don’t you worry. I mean it. Don’t you even dare think about it! I’ll be fine.”

  I turned towards the car. It was hard not to look back. Who knew how long The Society was going to keep me busy with convergence events. Saving the world had priority over family visits one way or the other. Gods, the curriculum for The Academy was probably seven kinds of screwed if most of their class was out there, fighting mimics and whatnot most of the time.

  Am I going to meet a classroom full of Addys? Or is everyone going to be their own kind of weird, to cope with the Custodian lifestyle?

  Distantly, I heard Dad start yet another mundane conversation with Mom. “Dear, do you know why Ted just messaged me a selfie in a hospital gown with the subheading “bet I can outrun you, bitch”?

  I’ll find out soon enough.

  For now, there’s nothing tying me down. No strings attached, no spiderwebs to watch over or get tangled in. Just me and the future. Me and Addy.

  +++

  Getting to Chicago was the easy part. The sun had risen well beyond noon by the time we drove past the Westside suburbs — ironically, located on the eastern part of Chicago. After a long seven hour drive, we should have been past the downtown area, but we were just barely starting to tickle its edges, and traffic was already piling up.

  Akira glanced at the HUD projecting the dashboard across the front window. “It is… 2:40.”

  “We’re going to be late for our appointment,” Addy noted while I leaned out a window. “No clue when we have a chance to get a second one. Hua Tuo is always in demand.”

  “I can’t see whatever’s causing all this traffic.” The sun was bright and glaring, making me want to retreat back into the cozy, cramped confines of our SUV.

  “We’re gonna be late,” Addy repeated.

  “Nervous?” I asked.

  “We got a next daytime appointment with the Hua Tuo. That’s not a small thing. They’re probably interested in our group because you’re a spider vampire, she’s a queen mimic slime thing, and your unconscious non-Custodian friend just told some of the most uncommunicative enemies to kill themselves, and they listened. We won’t get this lucky a second time.”

  “I’m also a magical girl,” I added. “Important distinction.”

  “I don’t see you running around in pink skirts.”

  “Would you like me to?” I slunk back into the car, delighting as Addy was obviously imagining what I’d look like in increasingly shorter skirts. She was probably using it to fuel her anticipation spells while she was at it. “Alright Akira, turn left here and find the nearest parking lot. We’re not getting there by car, but we are not missing this opportunity.”

  “Driving away from the airport seems a bit counterproductive, but hey, I suppose you’re the person with literal magic hands.”

  We found a parking lot soon and filed out of the car. Addy stretched, rubbing her eyes while I unzipped my spider backpack as far as it would go.

  I stared up at Akira. “Alright. Get in.”

  “What?”

  I rolled my eyes. “It’s bigger on the inside. It has snacks and air. Heck, it’s where I store Rebecca since she’s pretty slow without legs and whatnot. I’m pretty sure I can get to the airport in under an hour on foot.”

  “That’s thirty miles. More than a marathon.”

  “Yeah. And?”

  My smug grin was answered with a raised eyebrow, a clear challenge to my skills.

  Bro, Addy’s been putting me through the meatgrinder. I got this.

  He peeked inside, then after a short moment’s deliberation carried Clem out of the car and pushed her through the opening.

  “Kinda looks like you’re feeding her to it,” I said. “Om, nom, nom.”

  He shot me a bit of a glare.

  “Sorry.” Not the right time to be joking around, I see.

  Fitting Akira’s broad frame in was difficult, but once I got him past the shoulders he disappeared just like Clem before. Moe poked out, his bent red hat framing a quizzical stare.

  “How goes the rennovations?” I asked. “Need anything in particular?”

  He held out his palm. Right, more money would probably speed this along. But he just shook his head when I offered him some silver soulcoins.

  “Oh, right, ivory soulcoins for upgrades.” Didn’t have a lot of those. Then again, not much to use it on either. I wasn’t going to add more stuff to my Lucky 7 until I felt comfortable using it normally. “Well, if it helps you along, you can use one.”

  [Ivory Soulcoins: 3->2]

  Moe nodded and disappeared back into its depths. I turned to Addy, who was busy stretching her legs in ways that made me wince.

  “Race you to the airport?” she asked. “Ten soulcoins that I get there first.”

  “I have a better Idea. If I win, I get to take you out on a date.”

  Her wide-eyed stare quickly turned calculating. “If I win, we’ll go anyways, but you’ll wear a skirt this short.”

  I gasped in shock. How scandalous. How daring. “Oh, it is on.”

  An icon appeared on my minimap, a yellow line connecting me and my target. Two checkered flags were waving to each side.

  [Ready?]

  [Set…]

  [Go!]

  Addy kicked off the turf. Her short form belied a speed beyond what a human body was capable of. Before turning into a Custodian I could have kept up with her at just shy of a sprint; however she could keep this exertion up for over an hour. But I was no slouch. I had been preparing for just such a moment.

  I sped past her within a single block, leaving her goggle-eyed face in the dust with a cackle of glee.

  “[Elasticity] baby, while we were driving I’ve been optimising my musculoskeletal system for speedrunning a marathon!”

  I leapt at a traffic light, swung around it once like an olympic athlete, then shot myself up, back onto the clogged-as-heck highway. Acing the landing, I casually balanced myself with four of six arms while the rest propelled me over the nearest car. I slid gracefully onto the central boundary of the road, only to hear the gentle thump of someone else landing right behind me.

  Addy was in her hybrid form now. And she was not having too much trouble keeping up.

  “Oh come on, shapeshifting is unfair.”

  “You were born with longer legs, which is also unfair.”

  “Yeah, but you were born lighter, which gives you an edge in long-distance runs.”

  “I was born a literal tanuki!”

  Our playful banter stretched for the first third of the way. Then the strain hit. What felt like a warmup to Body-enhanced muscles started to become a serious workout. Addy was sometimes ahead of me, sometimes behind me, but never by more than a hundred-odd feet or so. No matter how much she goaded me, she couldn’t hide the strain from my eyes. We were evenly matched for the time being.

  We passed a convergence barrier-dome at a crossroads, the football field sized, opaque bell having slammed down straight on a highway loop. Addy and I slowed, and I pressed a hand to it in case it was about to pop.

  [Wampum Lake Containment Barrier]

  Recommended Custodian level: LvL 9

  Custodian Limit: 1/1

  “Someone’s already taking care of it from the inside.”

  We continued after that, bombing down the I-294 at speeds that drew the envy of everyone we passed by. That is, until I noticed a person flying alongside the raised highway in an outfit that reminded me of a stylized depiction of Queen Elizabeth, except with a few eyecatching details. Her gold-pleated dress flowed like metal, trailing tassels the size of bowling balls. Her crown was liquid gold that seemed to actively want to escape her deeply colored red hair.

  “Nyohoho, what is this, what is this?” The woman said in an odd accent, leaning back on two hands while her magic kept her afloat and at our speed with seemingly little effort. “Two chicks racing through the den of a lioness? And what doth mine eyes see, if it isn’t my old rival, Adelaide. Marvelous.”

  “We’re kind of… in the middle of a race,” I huffed, not wanting to reveal my exhaustion to her or to Addy. Just because my muscles were more durable and flexible than a Custodian with the same amount of Body, preventing muscle tears and boosting efficiency, that didn’t mean that running at high speed wasn’t exhausting.

  “Then a race it shall be. For it is I, Bit-nara, radiant queen, glorious, magnanimous, handsome, occasional dastard, but always — ack, ssibal!”

  She dipped below the highway embankments after Addy snapped a pebble she’d palmed at her forehead, making her lose her crown. I shot Addy an affronted look.

  “Addy, you can’t just do that.”

  “I can and I will,” Addy huffed. “Flying airheads… need to be reminded that the joy of levitation is a privilege that… that physics can quickly revoke. C’mon, let’s lose her around those highrises.”

  “That is so petty. You’re just jealous they can fly and you can not.”

  “Am not.”

  “Totally.”

  She squinted at me and palmed another pebble.

  “You’re not jealous, you’re not jealous, I swear!”

  The rest of the race continued at an increasingly sweaty pace. Chicago was a big city that sprawled along the south and west bank of Lake Michigan, leading to an urban jungle that grew like a crescent of blocks and towering buildings. We encountered three other occupied barrier-domes containing whatever it was that a localized convergence event had spat out there. It wasn’t the only sign that things were less than normal around here. Buildings had large gashes torn into them, with melted concrete corners and smashed windows visible every minute or so.

  There weren’t many people around outside of their cars.

  It kinda looked like Detroit. No shade on Detroit; I heard they were finally investing into infrastructure now that all the servicebot factories that had built their production lines on the cheap were paying enough taxes to support it. The key takeaway was that where Detroit looked like an abandoned city slowly rebuilding, Chicago was a big city slowly being abandoned in bits and pieces.

  Didn’t stop traffic though. People still had to show up at work no matter the flavor of the apocalypse. Only Custodians were eating good with so many opportunities to make some soulcoins.

  Speaking of, I was getting worried about losing this dang race. No matter how I pushed and pushed myself, Addy was always solidly on my six. It was almost as if training your entire life to be a lethal weapon made you very good at cardio. And she hadn’t even used her big weretanuki form, the one the weredog at the Lodge had called a warform. She was even faster in that one, though with the lack of perspiration and abundance of fur it was better suited for short distances.

  Stolen story; please report.

  One way or the other, she was holding it back, probably to lull me into a sense of security until the final couple hundred feet. And those were fast approaching indeed.

  I want to win. I’m also afraid Addy will actually make me wear a dress that barely reaches halfway down my thigh. But mostly, I want to win. What do I have to further that goal?

  [Arms & Arms proficiency] is more helpful for parkouring since I couldn’t figure out a way to effectively run on six arms no matter how much I practiced.

  [One moment] makes my brain fast, not my body.

  [More spider eyes]... yeah, no.

  I don’t want to screw with all the tuning I’ve done via [Elasticity] over the past who knows how many days.

  Which doesn’t leave a lot. If only I could combine some of this… wait a second.

  Six hundred feet. The final stretch was before us. The moment we crossed that magical threshold, I heard Addy’s transformation theme behind me.

  Two things I’d figured out during training: One, I could make my body double talk. It required a whole lot more focus than just making them run around in circles. Language was an awfully complex thing, but if it was just one body double, it was doable.

  Secondly, I always wondered why Addy didn’t swap forms more in the middle of a fight. In theory, she could dodge an attack by turning into a tanuki, then rebound into her warform and counterattack if she managed to swap any quicker. Turns out, she’d already trained her transformation time to the absolute maximum. On top of that, the transformation effectively left her blind for a couple split seconds, and that was all it took in melee to lose your footing.

  Thinking quick, I ran around a corner, then split a [Body Double] off to run back the other way.

  “Fuggin’ stupid ass construction site ahead!” it yelled as it ran exactly the wrong way, Addy taking advantage and immediately closing the distance to it to zero. “I don’t wanna wear a miniskirt, nooo!”

  Her grin turned into a hilarious frown as she looked over her shoulders and saw that there was no construction site. Only me, a couple steps from the finish line.

  I arrived at the goal post with a wheeze and sweat running off of me in streams, the system congratulating me with confetti and fanfares. I’d run a marathon in under an hour. Whoop whoop.

  My heart is killing me. Aaaah, but it’s time for a victory dance.

  Seconds later, Addy stomped over to stare into my face from inches away. Or, well, as many inches as she could, now in her human form again. She looked pissed.

  “Nyohoho?” I said, holding a hand to my mouth. “Did you fall for my devious trickery?”

  “Yes.” She nodded her head once. “It’s a date, then?”

  I blinked. And realized that I might not have been the only winner here.

  “Right!” I clapped my hands together, as if I was hoping to catch the initiative between them. “Tomorrow evening, seven o’clock.”

  “You don’t even know which continent you’ll be on tomorrow, let alone where to go.”

  “I’ll make it happen.”

  “How?”

  “Magic.”

  I grinned, finally eliciting a snort from Addy as she stomped past. And then… Addy just did some stretches and didn’t do anything else. Didn’t explode, didn’t snip a pebble at me. It was honestly quite worrying.

  This is worse than anything you could have done as revenge. Now I’m going to be jumping at shadows for the rest of the day.

  “So. What now?” I asked.

  “Follow me.”

  We walked down into a subway station, where a normal-looking Kiosk was manned by a normal-looking middle-aged woman. Candy, lottery, the works.

  “I’ll take the trashberry gumdrops for five and a gnome,” Addy said.

  The woman tapped her cigarette against an overfull ashtray. “Girl, just say you want to be teleported. Regulations say we’re a public service now.”

  “Teleportation boxes are a strategic asset, so proper discretionary procedures still apply.”

  “Clever. Alright, you get a pass. What about the other one?” Her eyes fell on me.

  “I’m, uh, here on an appointment with a doctor Hua Tuo.”

  Something blue flickered across her eyes. An implant, or a smart lense. I thought those were still in the prototyping phase? “Looks like you both are heading for the big island. Step on through the back, I’ll get ‘er warmed up.”

  ‘Out back’ we were met with a tiny cramped room with a console that looked positively ancient, and a device that I couldn’t place as anything but…

  “A phonebooth? Why a phonebooth?”

  “The teleportation network was laid down in the eighties to nineties,” Addy explained. “They took some inspiration from present-day media. Ever watched Doctor Who?”

  “Doctor who?”

  “It’s a series. We can watch it. Together.” Her stare had something expectant and predatory about it. “It’s just a couple episodes.”

  System: Make a note to watch this doctor who thing with Addy later.

  We stepped into the phone booth teleporter thingy. The woman fiddled around at the control panel for a moment before there was a loud, annoying blare.

  “Alright, back out with you all,” she said. “You’re too heavy.”

  “... rude.”

  “Not you, your thaumatic load. Out with it, what are you keeping in that backpack?”

  “Food, drink, a bazooka, pistols, an oversized shotgun, time bandaids, some ammo, a gnome, and like… three people?”

  “Yep, that’ll do it.” She sighed. “System says this is your first time teleporting, so I’m not gonna assume you were trying to smuggle items you aren’t supposed to through here. The basics of teleportation are simple: It ain’t cheap. The more magic and mass gets teleported through, the more magic it needs.”

  “Like, how much magic?”

  “Fifty soulcoins per person. You as Custodians get your costs paid by The Society. One of the two non-Custodians in your backpack has their travel costs paid for as part of a medical emergency. The gnome teleports for free if he helps smooth the travel along.”

  Which meant that Akira couldn’t come along, unless I paid. Which, honestly, wasn’t much of a choice. He was nothing but devoted to Clem, and if I was basically stranding her in a hospital far off from her home, the least I could do was make sure she had all the support she could get.

  Also, maybe a human perspective would keep me grounded in my stay there. Addy had implied that once we had accepted the dual summons of Academy and Society, there would be no going back for a while.

  “I’ll pay,” Addy and I said near simultaneously. “No, I’ll pay. You need your soulcoins. Stop doing that!”

  “Cute,” said the middle-aged woman. “But don’t keep your appointment waiting.”

  We split the difference, fifty-fifty. Back in the phone booth, Addy and I waited as the lady arduously slotted every single coin into the coin slot one by one. Then, she went back to the console, flipped a few buttons, and the phone booth’s windows went opaque.

  A moment later, there was a whump sound, followed by a woosh. The doors unfogged, and opened to a muggy and blistering atmosphere.

  +++

  It smelled different. It felt different.

  “Where the heck are we?” I asked, stepping out of the booth and into a field of phone booths and empty phone booth parking lots. They were arrayed in concentric circles, with us having caught one of the outer ones. At the edges, the platforms of hewn stone melded into a tropical forest, bowed trees and leafy fronds fighting for light and space among a tinderbox of dead vegetation. The sound of a river was coming from nearby. This was not the US. Probably not even the same degree of latitude.

  And what’s more, the sun was already setting in the distance.

  Are we on another planet?

  “Madagascar.”

  Oh. Duh. Timezones.

  “Like, the island from the meme penguins and stuff? Oh my god, I can’t wait to explore! Do you think we’ll see a lemur?”

  Addy’s stare was as disappointed as can be. “Maybe. Now come on, we have… two minutes until our appointment.”

  We hustled along a cobblestone path, the boughs, fronds, et cetera all a lot less inviting now that they were slapping me in the face. It reminded me of some sort of nature path that someone had made at a ren faire, a path divided into parts with pebbles, parts with humus, parts with needles. You were supposed to walk along the path barefoot and feel nature through your feet since if you lived in a city, you didn’t get to experience nature firsthand all the time.

  It was a bit ironic, given that there couldn’t have been anything further removed from nature than Addy and I. We were products of a magical system combining the essences of creatures from far off planets.

  Come to think of it, Doctor Hua Tuo’s place was supposed to be built right near The Academy, so where were all the buildings?

  I elected to hold that line of thought as the boughs opened up around a small office sat smack-dab in the middle of the jungle. It was oddly out of place, just like us.

  The door opened to crisp air-conditioned goodness, and immediately we were inside an operation room. No receptionist, no waiting area, just a room filled with medical doodads. Some of them looked futuristic, some ancient, some outright alien. A cheery, curly-haired brunette popped out from behind an array of computer screens with an enthusiastic wave.

  “Hello!” Said the cheery woman. “I’m assistant Ping, and this is the honorable Hua Tuo.”

  “Hello?” I asked. “We’re here for our appoi-oooh, what is that!?”

  One of the machines that I thought was just a cradle of various medical devices folded back in on itself, detaching from the wall to create a humanoid body. Its black metal skeletal frame was minimalistic, a small arm on the left articulated exactly like a human’s, a bulky one on the right housing more syringes, bonesaws, scalpels, and potions than I could count.

  The robot’s feminine voice was smooth and even when it first spoke. “You are twenty-seven seconds late. My time is measured and you are not the only patient. This will not repeat with future visits. Are we clear?”

  “Yes, honorable doctor,” Addy said, pulling me to bow down deeply with her. “My apologies. Traffic was terrible and we cannot fly.”

  “You ought to make friends with someone who can then,” the doctor robot shot back while her assistant distributed an herbal-smelling tea. “Now, you promised me a number of interesting patients. Where may they be found?”

  I slapped my forehead. But not with the tea-hand. Thanks [Proprioception sensors].

  I totally forgot to tell Akira that we’d arrived.

  “Oh, um, one second, ma’am.” I peered into my backpack as far as I could go. The sound of cups clinking was coming from deeper inside. Was that… also tea? I should really check what Moe was up to in person sometime. “Akira, can you get Clem out here?”

  The assistant gasped, but Miss Hua Tuo didn’t comment as I practically poured Clem out onto an operation table. She inspected her, three snake-eye cameras unfixing from the coil of sensors that hovered bundled together in place of a head. It reminded me of Medusahead, except each lens had a different color, size, and likely purpose.

  “Notes, miss Ping: Frontal bone indent, half a centimeter. No swelling of the brain, no leakage of dura mater. Seven-point-two on the Merlin scale, even pulse. Fluttering of the pre-ocular throat chakra, reversed positions with the superior node — image four. Attempting communication.”

  She tapped Clem’s crystal forehead eye with a finger, watching it shift to glare at her in spite of the time bandaids freezing her brain in place. In the same breath the doctor’s right arm plunged a syringe into Clem’s arm, extracted a blood sample, then dabbed the wound with alcohol-soaked cotton before putting a bandaid over it.

  I was vibrating with questions, but Addy held my hand all the way through the examination. Akira was sitting on a stool, looking ponderous, anguished, kneading his hands together.

  “Alien physiology, fae subtype.” The doctor finally intoned. “I will require a deeper study, but as there is no danger to the human body, I will defer this to a later date. However, there is lingering soul damage. Non-lethal. The time-delaying patches have helped prevent the worst of the backlash from affecting her body. The soul has scabbed over in the meantime, undisturbed by such paltry magic.”

  It literally stops time on an injury. Nothing paltry about that.

  “So, we can take them off?” Akira asked, ready to shoot to his feet.

  The doctor-robot nodded.

  “She will need rest, drink, and food. It is unhealthy to be sedated like this for extended periods of time, thaumically or otherwise.” She tapped the eye again. It cracked open vertically, her forehead tongue threatening to lick the doctor like an angry snake. “What I am curious about is this growth on her forehead. It is naturally integrated into her physiognomy, implying that it was always intended to be there.”

  “It was, no?” I asked. “There’s this alien called a—”

  “Asvexian, yes a reasonable misdiagnosis. However, genetic and thaumic analysis shows no overlap between the two.”

  “Oh god, so it is some sort of alien parasite?” Akira asked.

  For the first time, the honorable doctor grew quiet. When she next spoke, her voice was laced with a tinge of uncertainty. “It might be. It might be something else. Thaumic pressure on Earth has steadily been rising. So far, it seems beneficial, rather symbiotic, no? This runs counter to the norm when dealing with otherworldly influences.”

  “Could it be something else?” I asked.

  “Maybe she’s a holdover from the old supersoldier project?” Ping said. The honorable doctor made a flourish with her hand, allowing her to continue her explanation. “There was a paradigm shift during the efforts that preceded the Custodian project. The efforts consisted of taking normal people and fusing them with essences. However, through a lack of knowledge, tools, and subject strength, there was a high fatality rate. Those who survived were often just slightly more magical than the average person. Some wizards enjoyed the idea of an army of easily controllable magical servants. Others argued these sort of half measures wouldn’t work. There was a fight, the latter party won out, and the former scattered to the winds. Thus we come to the present day.”

  Clem, a mental-attack focused supersoldier? There was one problem with that hypothesis. Clem wasn’t old enough. Maybe her parents were, except… no, wait, they were basically never present. Always absent, always on the run.

  It leant credence to the second theory. I wanted to believe in it, not just because the thought of a parasite in Clem’s head was terrifying.

  “What exactly is an essence?” I asked.

  “Tell me if you discover a definition coherent with observed reality,” honorable Hua Tuo said. “You would win the Merlin Award, a Nobel Prize of sorts. As far as we can tell, they are concentrated magic; pearls within mimics, processors and motherboards in murderbots, a variety of trinkets among the fae. That magic can be absorbed by a Custodian and given permanent form. If the system recognizes it as an essence, it will work. Alas, the field of artificial essences is yet young and full of unproven theory.”

  “None of this matters,” Akira asked. “This thing is causing Clem distress. If she doesn’t want to live with it, can it be removed? Like, with surgery, or a potion?”

  “Unless you are in possession of some mythical panacea I am as of yet unaware of, then I must disappoint. Operating on it when we don’t have a correct diagnosis will do more harm than good. In the short term, I would be more concerned about the exhaustion her soul is experiencing.” The robot doctor made a hand motion and her assistant tossed some sort of… network of knots on a projector screen. “This is her soul. Here, here, and here the damage is the most severe. I have access to a similar incident that accrued such damage — a Custodian who could gather charge externally much more efficiently than internally went to an idol performance and channeled more power than their ECC could handle.”

  “As far as your friend is concerned, she was handed a firehose and told to hold it like any normal garden hose,” Ping happily added before the doctor gave her a small chop on the head.

  “She did say she was always terrible at casting spells,” I muttered. “I have some regeneration potion left, if that helps?”

  “While the regeneration potion may revert her physical injuries, they are still tied to the soul and will simply reemerge. I recommend against administering it, both because it would be a waste, and because, as her soul is now, your friend is… very fae.”

  “Fae?” Akira asked.

  “Power over people and things via the spoken word,” I whispered while the doctor took some more measurements.

  “Receiving a gift could well cause an imbalance between the recipient and the gift giver, putting more strain on the soul,” Ping chimed in.

  “The limits of the fae classes are directly proportional to their place in their society,” said the honorable doctor. “A small fairy, say, a pixie, may have little power, but through rising up in class it may reform its body and soul, and through this process its voice gains more weight. This is an example of a voice as weighty as that of royalty placed into a body that simply is inadequate to handle such strain.”

  “I don’t care if she’s turning into a fairy princess,” Akira said, falling back on the stool with a disbelieving stare. “I just want her to be happy again.”

  The doctor was quiet for exactly three seconds as she stared at Akira. “She is lucky to have such caring companions. You will have to explain this to her when we wake her up. You will also have to ensure that she does not speak a word for three, perhaps four weeks. In the meantime, there are salves and tinctures I will prescribe that shall assist with the healing of her physical body.”

  At that, she plucked the bandages off of Clem, who immediately shot up with wide eyes, coughing and hacking up pink phlegm.

  “Where—” she coughed. The doctor had already offered her a handkerchief, watching as Akira worked his magic on her.

  “Don’t talk. You’re safe. Nobody died at the party. We’re in Madagascar. You need a vacation, so we’re taking one now. No, I’m serious. Yes. Don’t look at me like that.”

  She huffed and hacked, quieting down after receiving something sirupy and orange to drink. At the doctor’s beckoning, she hopped off and onto one of the patient beds where a pile of prescriptions was already waiting for her. Now it was time for the next patient.

  Becca.

  “Ah, the mimic queen,” Doctor Hua Tuo said with a flat voice. “My, so much royalty today. I must be blessed by the heavens. Allow me to take a sample this large,” she pinched her fingers together, “and I shall conduct some experiments on your nature.”

  Becca flinched away as the honorable doctor’s many implements approached from just as many sides. She never did like needles.

  “I was sort of, maybe hoping that you could find a way for us to communicate with her?” I asked as a spoonful of Becca was placed in a vial, removed from her body to no visible pain. But if a slime could close its eyes, then hers were screwed shut. “It’s hard to hold a conversation when she can’t even speak sign language, and her body just gums up any keyboards we placed her on.”

  “Then let her consume something with a voicebox, and the problem will solve itself through her instincts.” The doctor said after filling a thimble with Becca’s slime jelly. Which, ok, maybe it was that easy. But biologicals were extra hard for mimics to, well, mimic. They preferred inorganic, coherent objects for a reason. And then there was the problem of feeding something living to her.

  Maybe I wouldn’t have to feed her a human. Something like a crow would do. But then she would sound exactly like a crow. And what's more, I couldn’t just sacrifice some animal to my friend like that.

  “She’s also mentioned something about her system being weird and recommending her to see a… soul doctor?”

  “Hmm, yes. Allow me to change into some finer optics.” Honorable doctor Hua Tuo grabbed one of the many lenses ordered categorically on a rack on the wall and slotted it in. Then she took out some acupuncture needles, sewing Becca swiftly from top to bottom. She didn’t exactly have a human body anymore, so maybe these needles were for… I dunno, tuning to the frequency of her soul?

  “I have attuned to the frequency of her soul,” Hua Tuo said and yesss, good guess, me. Now, what did that mean? “There is nothing immediately threatening which I can discern here. There is the essence slot, and there… ah, I see the issue. Her soul is automatically filling in the essence slots with the latent power of the mimic queen.”

  “Okay, that is… good?”

  “Yes and no. The power of the mimic queen is defined by limitless potential, and that of a Custodian is power through restraint. She will require no essences to progress, and can gain no benefits from them. But in return, she will gain a preset array of features and abilities that are likely to interact positively with each other.” The doctor shifted from one side to the next, tapping the needles. “I suppose the system is still experimenting with alternative modes of Custodian creation.”

  Like making a DND character with a prebuilt character sheet instead of building it yourself?

  I looked down at Becca. “So, I’m assuming her ability to shapeshift into objects will get better as she levels.”

  “Levels and practices.” The doctor’s robot body nodded once. “If she wishes to take human form with all of its abilities without eating a corpse first, then it shouldn’t take more than… say, fifty levels?”

  “Fifty!”

  Becca wobbled in indignation. That was more than fifteen levels higher than either Addy or I was. It was going to take forever to get there.

  “If you wish for a means to communicate, you may wish to ask a tinker to create a personalized item just for this purpose. Your system may have already taken the initiative in that regard.” One of her robotic fingers elongated into a long, blinking endoskop that pierced right into Becca. The slime visibly shivered. “You are an anomaly, but the Society deals with anomalies on the daily. The System will complain and be annoying until it has cataloged and gotten used to you. It is my job in part to ensure this occurs swiftly.”

  “Ok, that’s… ok.” I wasn’t exactly flush with Soulcoins, but hey, murderbots were pretty profitable. One or two small convergence aftershocks and I’d be rolling in dough again. That is, unless getting the training I desperately needed was going to eat up all my time.

  I was busy looking up Academy curriculums and whatnot when I decided on a whim to google our doctor’s name.

  “Say, it says Hua Tuo was a famous Chinese physician who died over two thousand years ago. You’re… not that same physician, are you?”

  “I am not,” she answered, giving Addy a normal checkup now. “The name Hua Tuo has become a title for the physician who most exemplifies his honorable traits. Seeking truth, applying knowledge, healing injury and sickness. The name itself carries fame too. It is partially at fault for my tight schedule, and yet it is this same name that grants me access to many means I would not have without it. A boon and a bane, a poison and a cure, like most medicines.”

  “Fascinating.” I suppose it would be like calling someone the modern Hippocrates.

  “Your blood values have improved remarkably since our last checkup, Custodian Adelaide,” she said, having seamlessly moved onto the Tanuki. “Your cortisol and other hormones especially are in a much healthier balance than before.”

  Addy gave me an awkward side-eye. “I’ve found some things I truly value.”

  Dawww, thank you too Addy.

  “Like relaxing massages, and taking vacations.”

  Hey!

  “Breaks are important for wounds to heal, be they mental, physical, or thaumatic.” Hua Tuo gave Akira a glance, probably discerning enough about his health to determine that he was absolutely in no need of help, before suddenly her optics turned to me. “Now onto the last patient. As a first time Custodian visitor, I will be brief and thorough. This may be uncomfortable. Please hold still.”

  I felt her gaze as much as her other instruments roam my body. She took my blood, absorbed my spittle, pipetted my tears, and swabbed boogers all the while scraping skin and hair and just about everything else a body produced. It awakened bad memories about the ur-mimic pressing in, clawing from every side. I closed my eyes, but that just made the image clearer, the impressions harsher, the…

  I felt a hand close around mine. Addy. My girlfriend and personal service tanuki.

  Once this whole convergence apocalypse was over, I’m getting every Custodian I know some good ol’ fashioned therapy. Me included.

  “Blood values normal, body fat average—”

  “I’m working on that!”

  “—which is to say healthy and not deserving of your scorn. A grafted addition to your soul offering an additional essence slot. Hmm. There is one parameter that is odd.” A trio of humming optics lowered themselves in front of my face. They were below eye level, but only because I’d gotten so used to wearing four eyes at minimum that my perception of what ‘eye level’ was had shifted upwards.

  She was looking at my lower pair, the mundane one I’d kept human. When she next spoke it was with the unparalleled focus of a child that just discovered an early christmas present.

  “Who gave you those eyes?”

  minimum, or else!' that explains the length of this chapter.

  extra chonky. Which actually brings me to a question: Do you prefer if a webnovel has infrequent, long chapters in the 4-7k word spectrum (14-25 book pages), or frequent, but shorter chapters around 1.5-3k words (5-11 book pages) long, and why? I'm not asking for this story in particular, just in general.