It didn’t matter.

  When I got close enough to the thing I was chasing, it panicked enough it started shouting at me in monster speak. Which is essentially how Felicity and I talked to each other when in thought. When words came out of my mouth, I’d set them up to e out in a chosen human nguage. But internally, it was this.

  “Stop! Leave me alone! What are you? Why?” it screeched.

  “You talk? Let’s talk,” I yelled back, only slowing down to match its speed. “I want to ask you why?”

  “I’m new here! Curious! What are you?” it shouted at me in answer.

  Knowing that I could catch up and track it down without much effort, I abruptly stopped, aed, “Let’s talk.”

  It went quite aways away before it came to a stop, whatever seemed like a safe distao it.

  “My name is Synthia,” I called to it. “I am an affectivore. I normally talk to humans.”

  “An affectivore Overlord?” it asked.

  I had never heard that term before amongst monsters. But there are a lot of us, and many more of us who are new, and we exist on a whole p, and there are quite a few swaths of monsters I’ve alked to before. Either because e differences were too great, we always had resided in different regions, or we ate different things.

  I was very unfamiliar with anything that resembled this term, which was more of a basicept that easily transtes into the English word ‘Overlord’.

  But, you know, I’d learned something new about myself and the nature of monsters retly, so I almost assumed it referred to that. Especially si seemed like other monsters could sense just how big and plex I was.

  But firmation is always good, “What does ‘Overlord’ mean?”

  “A powerful ohat the others avoid,” it replied. “Like you and me. How you not know?”

  “No one I ever kalked about Overlords,” I responded.

  Felicity thought at me internally, “What is this?”

  “You didn’t know, either?” I asked back.

  “No.”

  “We’re both Overlords, apparently,” I told her.

  “What?”

  I felt a little better about my own ck of knowledge, and asked my captive, “How on are Overlords?”

  “How you exist and not see and know Overlords?” it shot back.

  “If I’d known about them, maybe I could!”

  “You are a fool!”

  “We’re both fools,” Felicity agreed, heard only by me.

  People passing by oreets above likely heard nothing. Monster speak is not veyed through sound ht. It ot be picked up on radio. It is subliminal, acc to my definition of the word.

  “What are you?” I asked the other monster.

  “Milk,” it said, expining nothing more. It did not appear to be made of milk, so I gathered that was its name.

  I decided that was good enough, and moved to my question, “What do you want?”

  “The smallest Overlord here was showing itself,” Milk said. “I saw advantage, and wao take it. To cim a city. But you are here. You are weird. I o know why. I would like to go now. May I go, or am I food for an affectivore?”

  “Hold up.”

  “No.”

  “Stop. Calm dow’s talk more.”

  It didn’t speak, but it also didn’t move.

  “Are you talking about the lumbering oh the long mouth ah?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Milk said, simply.

  I perceived it studying me even more closely than it had been before. But as I didn’t know what its senses were like, I had no idea what it was learning about me. Which, as a mohat has been prey for several eras, was really unnerving to me.

  I’d been bold, and rash, aermined, and maybe a little more than irritated, but I was way, way outside my sphere of experienow.

  But Milk was afraid of me.

  “You’re curious, right?” I asked.

  “Not this curious,” it corrected me, retrag a timeter or two, as if readying to flee.

  “I’ll just talk. Listen,” I told it. “I’ve been talking to lifeforms, not monsters, since before mains, sihe dawn of life nguages. I’ve been focused, oblivious. I’ve been a fool. I’m bigger than I thought, but I know how to be dangerous now. Croc-face attacked and chased a friend of mine. I want to know why. you tell me why it might have dohat?”

  “Will you let me go?” it asked.

  “I have o adapt to eat you,” I said. “I will only destroy you if you attack me.”

  “Adapt to eat me?” Milk screeched in arm.

  “I have no need,” I said. I didn’t tell it I already could eat it, because I was trying to say I didn’t o eat it at all. I felt full, still. And I was still an affectivore, and I hated the idea of eating other monsters. “While you are in Gresham, I’ll try to protect you, if you help me.”

  That seemed to fused it. After some sile asked, “Why?”

  I decided to sound merary, “I’m trying tain with you. Offer you more than you want, because it’s what you need. So you feel safe enough to talk.”

  “Overlords don’t share space, and two are too many here,” Milk said. “It drives away too many of the prey.”

  If that was true, it maybe made a lot of things fall right into pce. Even if I didn’t like the picture it painted. Of course there was more to learn, but if Milk was so new here I doubted I’d learn those things from it.

  “Thank you,” I said. “We’re done. You may go or stay as you please. But if you e, I will hunt you down and end you.” Again, I didn’t want to do that, but I knew well enough that I o issue the threat.

  Milk hesitated. Then it asked, “Why are you like this?”

  “I’m an affectivore.”

  “How?”

  “A lot of practice,” I said, cryptically, letting it fill in the answer with its imagination.

  “I need you to leave first,” it finally said, pintive. “Go as far away from me as possible, so that when I run you won’t chase.”

  I chuckled a monster chuckle, and said, “OK, Milk. I’ll do that.”

  It studied me as I started to retreat, and then said, “Wait.”

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “Learn to look irands. If you think yoing to protect me, you’ll o do that.”

  “The Strands?”

  “You exist in them,” it expined, saying nothing more.

  I thought I knew what it meant, so I tha a.

  “You’re such a fug liar,” Felicity told me as I tailed Milk from what I hoped was outside its range of awareness.

  “I want to see where it goes,” I replied.

  I’d wished I’d bothered to ask it just how many Overlords, or Supraliminal monsters, were in Gresham. I could assume from its words that just me and Croc-face were too many, and with Felicity that would make three of us. Though, Felicity and I maybe only ted as o certainly seemed that Milk hadn’t detected Felicity being with me. Or, it hadn’t let on that it had.

  But, there was something about the way it had been answerihat told me it wasn’t telling me everything. And I wao know everything.

  If there were things about myself I didn’t know about, and things about monsters I didn’t know about, both of which had been the case, then I really wao know what was in Gresham that I didn’t know about.

  It was scary to me to not know important things like who in town might want me gone.

  So I tailed it.

  I might learn something that way.

  But Milk turned out to be a wise being, and it left town.

  I didn’t follow beyond that.

  For a little while, thinking about the enter and gathering myself, I stood on the road he storm drain we’d both exited.

  It was the st drain before the city limits, which were still quite a ways down the highway.

  As I’d pulled myself together in the form of a dog, thinking about chasing after it, I’d watched it pour itself across the ground like a grocery bag sized tsunami of milk. It had beey far ahead of me already, so I’d adjusted my eyesight to pe was already getting dark, so people wouldn’t see it very well, but if they did they’d probably mistake it for a pstic bag blowing in the wind. They might do a double take to be sure, but it was fast enough it’d be gone.

  “I learned a lot less from that than I’d hoped,” I thought to Felicity.

  “Tell me about it,” she replied.

  “How are things going on your end?” I asked, looking back over my shoulder at the neighborhood behind me.

  Felicity hit me with a hint of both exasperation and satisfa, “Amber and Josephine are in the clear, now. But I’m getting the impression that there’s somethihat I ’t see that’s ing up my mess faster than I make it.”

  “Another ‘Overlord’?” I specuted.

  “Could be.”

  “Maybe we should both learn to look at the Strands,” I suggested.

  It took her a few seds to respond to that, but agreed, “Yeah.”

  “I think I’m going to stick to calling us all Supraliminals,” I decided.

  “Sure, boss.”

  I turned and started trotting bato towally chewing on what she’d just called me. Was it just snark, or something deeper? The emotions and thoughts I was getting from her weren’t really telling me much. She was hiding a lot.

  I eventually decided to reply, “I don’t want to be your boss.”

  And then for the walk back, I did what I could to shut her out from having access to my thoughts.

  I o mull things over in privacy. Especially if she was keeping things from me.

  I realized I was dealing with more crises at ohan I'd had to for a long time.

  And usually when things got half as plicated as this, in the past, I’d run.

  But, I have human beings I wao stay in touch with for some reason, another pair of people I wao make sure were safe, a potentially duplicitous teratovore stuside my own being in a way I’d never imagined possible, my own nature had turned out more plicated than I’d realized along with the very nature of all monsters, and I’d bee what I’d hated the most - at least partially. In a fit e and remorse, I’d eaten at least part of another monster.

  Some of those things weren’t anything anybody could run from. And the rest were things I didn’t want to run from, if I didn’t really uand why.

  Also, I was starting to get the impression that someone was fug with me.

  The evidence for that was mounting up, and I was feeling grumpy about it. Ornery. Ready to stampede.

  Obviously, I’d been fired and erased from the puters of Hayward Grocery faster than should have been possible for a human. That had really been my first clue.

  But other things that had been nagging me were starting to stick to that clue like lint on hard dy.

  And Milk’s advice regarding the motives of other Supraliminal monsters was like throwing a whole other, half sucked piece of hard dy into the same pocket, all wet from saliva ara sticky itself.

  If Croc-face had been going after Felicity because they were both Supraliminal, that made more sense if Croc-face was more of a teratovore than the people eater I’d assumed it was. A teratovore would want other monsters around to feed on, whereas a people eater would want fewer of them to avoid feeding frenzies. But maybe Felicity had attacked it first some time ago, and lied to me about her nature? Maybe that had e?

  I didn’t know. That felt like a stretch. Most likely it just felt threatened by her presence, reizing what she was, a like it could take her doeg if not eliminate her if it struck first. And that worked regardless of its true nature.

  I had the feeling that both Felicity and I had not been on Croc-face’s radar until retly. Or I was just too scary big for it. But it was clear that I was ging somehow, and rapidly. And it ossible that Felicity had started undergoing a simir ge.

  In any case, I was chalking up my ret ges and my incorporation of Felicity into my system as the triggers for my firing. Something had noticed me and wanted me out of that business fast for some reason. Maybe to make me feel fucked with.

  And now, either that something, or a whole other something, was ing up after Felicity’s mayhem at city hall and the prect.

  Something that seemed to like to see some sort of order in p local human affairs.

  And I’d been warned by Milk. Something would probably try to drive me out of town, if it wasn’t Croc-face itself.

  Switg metaphors, there were huge fug gaps in the puzzle.

  Still, it was starting to take some kind of shape.

  But, then, I also had this oher piece that stood out to me. And currently it looked like it came from another puzzle entirely, too big, the wrong type of shape, and with none of the atg.

  I’d been holding onto it in the bay mind for a while, waiting to worry over it when other things made more sense. I’d been looking for the puzzle it went to.

  The piece was this: If Felicity could jump part or all of herself to other hosts through eye tact or her special glyph, why couldn’t she cast a wider and ever shiftio catch her inal prey?

  Why had she hat eborate pn to use me as bait to catch monsters she’d never fed on before?

  Was it just because there were fewer monsters in Gresham these days, thanks to so many Supraliminals present, and thus fewer bites? That made some sense, if she wasn’t aware of what was going on. Which was the charitable, simpler interpretation. To borrow human thinking, Occam’s Razor favored it.

  Or was her motive something she was hiding from me?

  The thing was, I had a hunch, that I couldn’t trace or substantiate, that she’d known just what I was from the beginning, before I even suspected it.

  And now I was stuck with her eating away at me from the inside.

  Was I being unfair to her, or appropriately cautious? And if that hunch was right, what could I even do about it?

  Nothing that I knew how to do, that’s for sure.

  Except just eat her.

  That’s what scared me.

  Before I even got home, I thought to Felicity, “Maybe pull back from all your other hosts for a while. Don’t want to get caught by the spider whose web you’ve been messing with.”

  She fshed me an image of a grin, “Already done, boss.”

  theInmara