The fuck?

  I was right about one thing—this sure was a lore drop. Is he going to say that Star Guardians and Anathema are the same thing? Seriously? It was weird, but in a way I was feeling almost disappointed. It also went against what my tongue had been telling me—namely, that they might have some relation, sure, but also that there was a fundamental difference. Meanwhile, Dad just kept rambling on.

  “You might be aware that Guardians have a higher false positive rate on those tests, but it's only about twenty times the normal false positive rate. Granted, given the low rate of true positives to begin with, you can use Bayes' theorem to see that the chance of any test positive being an Anathema infection is—never mind that. The point is that regular Guardians still only have about a one percent chance of testing positive. Decently low—and still way higher than the chance that either of you don't test positive.

  "If you're curious, the specific probability you test positive is about 0.9995. That being said, I'm sure you've heard conspiracies that Star Guardians are secretly just Anathema at some point. I can assure you that those are all false. Obviously, any kind of creature that runs around violating the usual linearity is going to share some common features. There are more things out there than just Star Guardians and Anathema, by the way."

  I felt like I should be hyper focused on remembering every word he was saying, but honestly, he was losing me. It wasn't even a 'can you say that again, but in English' moment—it wasn't unfamiliar terminology, since I'd been through shit like linear algebra and elementary differential equations. I was just lacking too much context for any of it to be grounded. For instance, having the knowledge that a relationship was linear was incredibly useful in all kinds of engineering and mathematics, but it was only in the context of a particular system.

  Simply put, the idea that the esoteric abilities of Guardians and Anathema required a nonlinear relationship in some feature space was as comprehensible to me as it was useless. That being said, thanks for confirming that we're not actually the same thing. Definitely good to know.

  "The second thing is that you're not allowed to tell people you're a Star Guardian. Not yet. As far as anyone else is concerned, you're just two regular, everyday Guardians who awakened during an Incursion. I imagine you're wondering why you're not allowed to go announcing it, but unfortunately, that's only something you'll properly appreciate later."

  Ugh. Seriously? I absolutely hated that kind of shit. It was infuriating. Blah blah blah, I have to act all mysterious for mysterious reasons that I can't tell you because of something mysterious that you're also not allowed to know. Blah blah blah. Shut up. No one likes you.

  "Got it?"

  We both nodded. It was hard to tell if Katherine had been listening or if she was just nodding along without thinking, but either Dad didn't pick up on it or he didn't care. "Good. Let's go get some tacos, then. Don't want to leave the others waiting."

  "I thought you said there were three things," Katherine interjected. Huh, so she was listening. Also, she was right. He did say that.

  "I did say that, didn't I?" He mused. "Just forget about that one, please."

  Katherine and I shared a look. I shrugged. Whatever. The faster we get through this, the faster you can go loiter around the hospital and I can—fuck. I don't know. He was already walking off anyway, so the two of us didn't have much choice but to follow him.

  It was still dark when I woke up. That was unusual. I was usually more of a night person—you know, go to bed at midnight, wake up at noon—nothing too unusual. The day before was a bit crazy, though, and I ended up crashing out just minutes after returning to my suite. I had no idea what time that was, only that we'd spent maybe an hour at that Uncle Xavier's place. The whole experience was just generally uncomfortable. No one wanted to say much, or, if they did, they didn't have the nerve to speak up.

  We did find out what the deal was with the whole 'Gringo' thing. Uncle Xavier's was a casual, semi-nice restaurant. I expected it to be a Mexican restaurant or something, but it was more like a generic, 'come eat food at this place' joint run by a Guatemalan guy. It was sort of the opposite of that trend of ultra-stereotypical Mexican places owned by white Americans. It did have a Central-American styled bar, though, and it turned out my dad really was a regular.

  Sitting there quietly, dressed in khakis and a pastel polo shirt with a pair of aviators hanging from the collar, nursing a barely-touched mohito—yeah, combined with his natural appearance, he really did look like some CIA fucker cutting deals with anti-communist 'freedom fighters' in a banana republic.

  The food was decent. True to his word, the man did not order tacos. There was definitely something problematic about using the phrase 'getting tacos' to refer to eating at a restaurant owned by a guy from Guatemala, but I decided to be charitable and assume it was a complementary component to the 'Gringo' joke.

  Checking the time, I realized that it wasn't as early as I thought. My phone said it was currently 5:15—okay, that was really early, especially for a sleepy princess, but it wasn't middle of the night. It was also a Saturday, so most people would probably still be asleep. Fuck. What am I supposed to do with myself, now? There were many possible answers to that question—get a shower, research chameliums and Anathema as a whole, maybe work on getting the new Guardian ball rolling, or even some lame uni assignments.

  I decided to throw on some shoes and a jacket and head out onto the roof.

  My own suite was a partially isolated zone within David's LA penthouse. The fortieth floor and the thirty-ninth below it were both totally private. The only stuff above us was purely industrial-type stuff that was needed for the high rise as a whole to function properly. That was also generally off limits, but not to me—I had easy rooftop access, courtesy of David. There were still plenty of areas up there that were off-limits, and I did my best to respect that. I never had a good reason to poke around where I didn't belong up there, and I also didn't want to lose my roof privileges.

  The early morning air was cold, and that was even truer up this high. It was also windy—there was actually a bit of fun architecture trivia I told anyone I decided to bring up here. It was that wind, not gravity, was the most dangerous kind of load that these modern high rises would experience under normal conditions. A lot of engineering work that I didn't pretend to understand went into making sure that buildings like this were stable under the massive drag forces they accrued over their whole surface.

  Gravel crunched underfoot as I walked over to the railing on the west side. The side facing the Pacific, that is. Not sure how you're supposed to describe that, actually. Is the west side of a building the side that faces west, or is it the side you'd see if you were standing somewhere to the west of it? I had my phone, so I could look it up if I wanted to. I didn't bother.

  I was a bit too short to look over the stone railing—a fact that had infuriated me for years. I knew there was a small step stool lying around somewhere up here, because I'd brought it up myself a couple years back. I didn't feel like looking for it, though, so I just pulled myself up to sit over the edge. Scooting into position, I let my legs dangle. The building I was on wasn't close to being the tallest nearby, but it was still well over a five hundred foot drop. And well over the point where more height stops making a difference.

  David would instantly revoke my roof privileges for all time if he saw me doing this, I mused. I couldn't argue that it wasn't reckless—actually, I'd never even done it before. I could be impulsive at times, but not enough to do something this pointlessly dangerous. But it's not so dangerous anymore, is it?

  The few parked cars on the street below looked so tiny. The entrance to an underground parking garage was right below me, too—I couldn't see it from here, but I knew which side of the building it was on. Leaning forward, I relished the cold, damp wind, the gray, pre-dawn light, and the several hundred feet of air separating the entirety of my life up to this point from a hard and unyielding slab of reinforced concrete.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  It wasn't the first time I'd considered this.

  It was the first time I'd come so close, though, and the revelations from the day before should be enough to push almost anyone close to the edge. Spinning around to face sideways, I worked on untying my shoes. No point in ruining perfectly good footwear. Then, sneakers now in hand, I spun back around, and allowed my whole body to slip over. Woah.

  There was some kind of primitive thrill that came from feeling like the whole world had dropped out from below me. Logically, I knew it was the opposite—that I was the one who was falling and that solid, uncompromising earth was rushing upward to meet me. Opening my eyes, I took a few seconds to appreciate the unfamiliar sight of glass and steel zipping away beside me and how it contrasted with the slower parallax of the buildings farther removed from my wild descent.

  Wait. I might have just made a mistake.

  I knew how to make my claws materialize, but aside from those and the lower half of my face, I had no idea if the armor was something I could form whenever I wanted. I had no memory of first creating it—consciously, I'd only ever modified or subsumed it. Shit.

  But upon willing that shell of metal to materialize around me, I felt something happen—it just didn't feel like it was enough. Come! On! Don't crap out on me right now! I need—wait. My overeager mind slowed to a crawl as it snagged on something. Why would I even want to cover myself in the first place? It wasn't like it would do anything to protect me from the blunt force of the fall, and in fact, increasing my weight by several hundred pounds would make me accelerate well past my previous terminal velocity. I shouldn't—ugh!

  I hit the ground hard enough to crack the nearby concrete. It was also hard enough to crack me, and I had to clench my jaw to stop myself from crying out. Christ, nothing about that was a remotely good idea. There was a rather surreal moment where I could feel my legs, but not really, as if the flesh part of them had gone unresponsive. God, what do I even mean by that? What part of a leg isn't made of flesh? I'd definitely sprained something, and God did my lower back hurt.

  My powerful regeneration was already kicking in. I soon came to realize just how badly I'd fucked up my lower half when my spine finished healing itself and I was violently subjected to all the pain sensations that hadn't formerly been reaching my brain. Oh God that's bad. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

  Saying that both legs were 'broken' might be a bit of an understatement. The regeneration was still stupidly fast though, and I started to worry more about someone walking by and wondering what the hell was going on. I was also right about which side of the building the garage entrance was on—I'd landed essentially two or three feet away from the end of the ramp. That gave me an idea, and I started sliding myself in that direction.

  I also noticed that my feet had morphed into something like a cross between a talon and a sharpened sabaton. It was that same dirty, burnished gold stuff that my claws were made of and that had spread over the dull gray material of my previous armor like thin conduits. My claws were also out, and I suspected the same went for my lower face. It felt like there were some important observations there, but mostly I was focused on getting away from the open street and controlling the pain.

  A convenient feature of the parking ramp was that it would allow me to transition from using my own strength to scoot around to rolling along under the power of gravity. That was exactly what I did, though it did come with the inconvenient side effect of banging my still-regenerating legs around again, and again, and again, and several dozen more times all the way to the bottom. It was so much worse than getting pancaked by the smasher titan.

  Way too many seconds later, my tortuous roll ended. I just stayed there, staring up at the concrete ceiling. If anyone was on their way out of the garage, they were about to wonder what a random girl was doing lying at the bottom of the exit ramp. Let them wonder. I think I need at least another minute. Now that I was letting myself just sit there and relax for a little bit, I started to realize that my injuries weren't as bad as I'd thought.

  Yeah, there was stuff that was broken, but it wasn't like I had snapped bones sticking straight out of skin at any point. Sitting up a little with my arms revealed as much, and my pajama pants didn't have any blood. To be fair, I'm not sure what my blood looks like now, or if I even can stain anything with it. I thought back to the solid, metallic veins in my hand that I saw while it was detached. Yeah... probably not gonna be ruining any sheets with that.

  Wait. What the fuck is my next period going to be like?

  Now that was an interesting thought. Weird chamelium body composition aside, would that even happen anymore, now that I had fully 'awakened' as an Anathema? I had no idea. One way or another, I'd find out eventually.

  It didn't take long at all for my legs to finish regenerating and for the pain to vanish. It was, frankly, ridiculous, and I wondered if I should plan a series of experiments to start documenting and timing it. I also saw that there were no cars waiting for me to get my ass out of the way, thankfully. It wouldn't stay like that indefinitely, though, so I stood up and set about making myself scarce. What now, though? I could just go back up to my suite and act like nothing had happened. That wasn't the only option I had, though.

  Along with my phone and wallet, I'd also stuffed a ring of keys into my jacket pocket. Maybe I'll text Katherine. I bet she's still at that hospital. We'd exchanged numbers near the end of our time at Uncle Xavier's. At this point, I was still committed to the Star Guardian gambit I'd cooked up yesterday. Katherine was a crucial component in that, so I'd already moved ahead with the expectation that we'd start seeing a lot more of each other. Look at me, making awesome new friends and everything.

  Before that, though, I needed to put on my shoes.

  After that was done—and the exterior of my body was one hundred percent back to normal—I unlocked my phone and searched for Katherine's contact. The last message was from her, telling me that she was probably going to stay at the hospital overnight.

  Dad took it upon himself to ferry everyone around after we finished up the meal. For me, that meant a swift deposit in the main lobby next to the elevators. For Katherine, it meant taking her to the hospital however many miles North from here where they'd supposedly taken Max. I had no idea how she expected to get a visitor pass, but it seems they'd somehow managed it. Checking the time, I saw that it was now a little after 5:30. I also checked the address of the hospital in my map, and it said the drive would probably take at least two hours. That was more than long enough to make for a reasonable arrival time if I left now.

  Well, if you assume I'll make any attempt to stick to the speed limit.

  I'd gotten to choose my first car when I graduated high school three or so years ago—massive rich girl things, I know—which is how I ended up with the C9 Corvette key rattling around in my jacket pocket. That fact still kept me a bit self conscious—I was well aware of the look it gave me—and that was part of the reason I'd gone with American muscle. Less sickeningly cliche than a Lambo or something. It was also fully electric, which was important for two reasons.

  One, Anathema weren't the only global threat, and people—especially in California—were still conscious of the environment and climate change. Going electric was a good look around here, and it wasn't even impractical. The insane ramp-up in emissions that accompanied humanity's collective response to the incursions was now being offset by some of the accelerated, quasi-wartime technology roadmaps. It was now the age of information and atomics.

  The modern computer may have began its life in the 1940s, but it was in the last thirty years that information technology reshaped nearly every industry on the planet. The pace and scale of advancements in computing was rivaled only by the leap forward in atomics. The name was really a misnomer, but not enough for people to care about changing it. Nuclear engineering was a proper subdiscipline, after all, and the immense leaps in theory were exceeded only by greater leaps in effective application.

  The second reason for my choice to go electric was the more important one, though—instant torque. Speed was great, but I was more partial to acceleration. I hadn't had much chance to play around though, even in the three years I'd owned the thing. Now, however, I was going for a longer drive—and most of it would be through low traffic, twisty and curvy roads that skirted cliffs at the very edge of the California coast. I didn't know what kind of speed limits they had on those things, but I also didn't care.

  After firing off a quick text to Katherine, I turned on the car and set about choosing the right playlist. Let's see—'Villain Era,' maybe? Contextually appropriate, sure, but not really the feeling I'm going for. I could just do 'Roadtrip,' but it's actually not high enough energy for this. Wait. Yeah, that one.'

  It was at 5:42 am, then, that I rocketed out of the parking garage—unwashed, undressed, and unbothered—with the top down, the 'Dream Girl Mania' playlist engaged, and 'Free Bird' by Lynyrd Skynyrd ready to start blasting.

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