Sometime in the middle of the night, while resting after doing some thought reading exercises with Felicity, I asked, all merged with my domain and rexed, “Have you seen any other monsters lurking around Hayward Grocery, that you remember?”

  I had adapted myself a little, and could feel her emotions like I had been able to do with lifeforms, now. I could also get some surface thoughts. Our versations would still be versations, she assured me, and we would still be able to hide thoughts from each other if we really wao.

  Anyway, I felt her sidering that question with curiosity and care, searg her memories. What memories she had.

  “No.”

  “You probably never fronted much while Amber was actually shopping,” I guessed.

  “No, I don’t think I did,” she said.

  “And you don’t remember if you’ve seen any of my managers?” I asked.

  She took the same amount of time to sider that, “No, I don’t think so.”

  “So,” I said, slowly, in a leading manner.

  “It remains a possibility that one of your managers is an emanant that clocked you,” she finished. “And maybe they closed the store and fired you, and scrubbed the puters.”

  “Yeah.”

  “There are people iore,” she said.

  “I know,” I replied.

  She’d doubtlessly sensed new potential hosts. The thing that had woken me up was the feeling of a few humans walking ay psuedodomains. Someone was in the manager’s office right now.

  “I’ll check what’s going on,” she said. “A if I see anything weird.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You could learn to do something like this yourself,” she reminded me.

  “I’m saving as muy own energy and potential for a really big fight,” I said.

  “OK.”

  Sometimes you both have to reiterate the obvious, as a way of synizing your iions. It’s a kind of cheg in. Recalibrating.

  We’d do it again, even as we got more used to each other.

  Later the evening, we all met at the Ran.

  Greg had started calling it the Raun.

  Shady’s was better as a fortable venue, but it was too close to daoo well known as a pce we might go.

  We’d already exged text messages, almost throughout the day. Quick updates, ches, perti questions and answers. But these were things we o reiterate out loud for the sake of human foibles, bonding, and keeping everyone up to date.

  We took up one booth, and the table was full of pancakes, ba, and coffee for dinner.

  “How’d you spend your day?” Cassy asked me. “It must have sucked not ing into work.”

  I khat st sentence was sarcasm, as genuine as it souherwise. She was too good at delivering it deadpan and all ear sounding, but she couldn’t hide her iions from me.

  “I went for a lot of walks,” I told her. “I’ll expin in more detail in a bit, though.” I tur and asked, “How much catg up do Ayden and Cassy need?”

  “After everything, I’m going to need a refresher,” he said. “I’m not sure I believe what my own eyes saw, myself. And after what’s been said about you, well…”

  “Right,” Ayden agreed. “What’s really going on?”

  Apparently, they’d all been prepped to distrust ma by our versation about unions. And then, the weird way the store had closed for a day had set them even more on edge. And I could feel that, too.

  “Do the thing with your hand,” Greg said. “I want to see that again.”

  “Hold on,” I held up my very human looking hand. “Let’s take this at the easiest pace.”

  He nodded.

  I looked at Cassy and then I looked at Ayden, and then I sighed and said, “I’m going to sound like a wacky spiracy theorist for a little bit, and then I’m going to get wackier, and then I’m going to show you how it’s all probably true. I ’t prove a lot of it to you, but I , and will, turn your world upside down. Are you OK with this?”

  “I mean, we’ve both been prepped a little bit by Greg,” Cassy said, putting her hand oable in lieu of toug my arm as she sat o me. “But, as Greg might put it, what if we wao ght bato the Matrix? Are we in danger knowing this stuff?”

  “At this point, you’re more in danger by not knowing,” I told her. “I tell you how to take simple precautions and what to look out for. And that will keep you safer than most humans long past the time we’ve parted ways, whether you believe me or not. Unfortunately, the danger you’re in is already here, and I’m trying to deal with that.”

  “Then start from the beginning like we’ve been told nothing,” Ayden said.

  And they all nodded.

  “OK,” I said. Then I gnced around the dining area while listening to Felicity’s reas. She was on board so far. I decided I’d keep it to simple firmations, at first, though. “First of all, the monster we saw ier videos was real. An actual monster. Amber, our favorite er, was not in on any sort of a publicity stunt, she was legitimately being chased. The police have been asking her and her friend Josephine a lot of annoying questions. And, I spent part of today helping the two of them ehat. I have some talents that be put to use in that way. Which brings me to why the store closed down for the day and I was let go.”

  “So, the managers weren’t lying?” Ayden asked.

  I held up a finger, “They said they caught me breaking the w, and they were right. I did. But I did it in a way that made it look like the store was breaking the w, so they had to cover it up.”

  “How so?”

  I shrugged and grinned, “I wasn’t taking any money.”

  “So you were not embezzling?”

  “No,” I said. “No mo all. I was w pletely for free.”

  “What?” Cassy blurted.

  “How?” Ayden asked. “You were in the puter. The payroll –”

  Greg cleared his throat and said, “I think the why is more informative right now.”

  “Yeah, why? Why not take a paycheck?” Ayden asked.

  “Because I don’t need money, and if I was ever discovered, I o be able to leave with as little impad paper trail as possible,” I told him. “It’s a habit I’ve developed after a very long time of doing what I do, and I’ve found myself going to greater and greater lengths to keep it up as teology, ws, and identity trag have gotten more advanced.”

  Cassy clicked a single fingernail down against the table, “So you’re g that what Greg told us is true? That you’re some kind of –”

  “Precambrian monster,” I said, smirking and nodding. “From the Cryogenian period, specifically, I think. Or, an emanant, as my friend calls us. Like the thing in the video, but so much less violent.”

  “And you feed oions,” Greg said. “Radiaions. Is that right?”

  “That is what I told you, yes,” I firmed.

  “If you are this,” Ayden asked, “why are you friends with us?”

  “Because I need friends. No matter how fleeting to me,” I told him. “And in the meantime, you’re not fleeting. You’ve got nice long lives I enjoy a portion of, retive to a single day, and you’re important.”

  “You know who you sound like when you say that?” Greg snickered. I didn't miss the pop culture reference when he emphasized that word, we knew each other too well.

  “Humans aren’t terrible at imagining what it’s like to be something like me, and then writing that into their TV shows,” I said. “And you all love plimenting yourselves through fial aliens and such. But I’ve spent millions of years abs and learning about humaions. Of course I’m going to be sympathetic. If I am what I’m saying I am.”

  “Right.”

  “There’s a lot more to discuss, but,” I looked around at them, “is it time for a demonstration?”

  “Right here?” Ayden asked.

  Greg grimaced.

  Cassy just blinked.

  I looked around at the establishment and iionally actally caught the attention of a waitress, who walked over and asked about our food and coffees.

  After reassuring her aing topped up, we were less likely to be interrupted, and the rest of the patrons probably wouldn’t notice.

  “OK. It’ll be OK. Just try not to make a fuss,” I said. “It might be hard, because it’ll be weird, and maybe scary. But just take deep breaths and take your time to process it, and we keep it low key.”

  They all nodded.

  “Feel absolutely free to get up and leave and walk away and never see me again, afterward, though,” I told them. “I don’t io trap you in anything or hurt you, and you should take care of yourselves.”

  “Yoing to do the thing with your hand,” Greg said.

  “I’m going to do something with my eyes as well, to sweeten the deal,” I said. “But yeah, that’s the most discrete and crete way to show you.”

  Then I pushed my pte and mug aside, and held my arm out across the table with my palm up.

  “Watch,” I told them.

  And I slowly but very visibly ged my hand into that of an opossum’s, scaled up to fit me. I’d decided on something different from st time so that Greg wouldn’t get the impression that I had a default form or something.

  As it was happening, I said, “Go ahead and touch or hold my hand to feel it happening, if you like. I won’t hurt you. It’ll make it seem just a little more real.”

  Ayden g my face before reag out to my hand and froze. I’d already ged my eyes to look like those of a cuttlefish.

  The set of emotions that were flying about the table were not dissimir to a handful of people experieng a drug trip. Probably mushrooms or LSD.

  That made me feel like I’d do right. I’d said the right words to prep them, and had maintaiheir trust. It was weird to them, but not terrifying.

  There was still plenty of adrenaliement, and a bit of growing unease.

  If this was real, then the scary monster was real, and that meant the world was more dangerous than they’d imagined. So maybe it was best if this wasn’t real. But it was real. It felt real.

  “Greg observed correctly the ht,” I said softly, “that you all already know the ces of being attacked and/or hurt by a mohat it’s somewhat lower than the occurrence of urban legends. A lot less than car acts, and you drive cars. A lot of us do feed off of what you do, like I do. But it’s like tig the butt of an aphid to get sugar from it, or dust mites eating your skin. Or flies and dules doing their thing. You don’t notice it and it doesn’t hurt you.”

  “Then why are you called monsters?” Cassy asked.

  “Because I like the word,” I said. “And, some of us are very dangerous.”

  I spent the rest of the evening catg them up to the events of the day, including who Felicity was, how she worked, and how she was now stuside my being.

  I even told them about me being a teratovore, because from a human perspective that was a beneficial thing. I could better protect them, even if I wasn’t practiced at it. And my feelings about it, not wanting to be a teratovore, would seem human to them as well.

  Despite what I’d doo my hand and eyes to demonstrate, the longer we talked about it all, the more it obviously felt like we were talking about a book or a role pying game to them. Somethiing and special that they were participating in, but familiar in a fantasy way. A game of make believe that could be as real as they wa to be.

  Maybe it helped that we’d put some distand time between ourselves and Croc-face.

  Maybe it helped that my story expihe weird behavior of Hayward Grocery’s ma.

  “This is probably one of the things you’re best at,” Felicity told me. “You know people. You know how to listen to them, and reassure them, and calm them down.”

  “Practice,” I said to her in thought. “And the magic of eatiions.”

  “Yes,” she replied. “Amber is shit at it.”

  I ughed out loud, in the habit of mimig humanity, and then had to expin just what had happened.

  Shortly before we ed things up, Cassy was leaning away from me and assessih sparkling eyes. Like maybe she could see something she’d never noticed before, even though I’d reverted my hand and eyes bay disguise.

  “You know,” she said. “You’re probably so freaking old because you’re so freaking old.”

  theInmara