Alter: Kadence

Local Network World: 0055/0098

Dates: 13/07/2025

Just This Girl, Y’know?

“Where are we? Where did you take us?” Kade demanded. Seven had walked ahead, letting Kade trail her.

“Anna’s World.” Seven called back over her shoulder.

“Why?”

“I mean, partially it’s because I wanted somewhere quiet where we could talk.”

“So talk. What do I care?” Kade deadpanned. Seven paused, turning back towards Kade with a quizzical expression. She shook her head, sighing.

“How did it feel, when Sara left you?”

“What?” Kade murmured. “What do you mean?”

“I’m reading you. Like Liv does. I want to know how it felt. For you.”

“Really fucking great, 12-out-of-10 would recommend, thanks so much for asking.” Kade spat.

“Okay, I’m not making myself clear. That’s on me.” Seven took a step towards Kade. “The thing is, Kade, Olivia talks about the points where Alters diverged from one another a lot, right? Well our point of divergence was that event.”

“Sara leaving?”

“Yes.”

“Olivia said you were there during the Siege of Edenglassie.”

“Yeah, but it didn’t change anything. You know what we were like, pre-transition. Dissociated; barely there. All of the trauma and pain of that event, it just sort of…fell away, y’know? Out of sight, out of mind, like the rest of the things we’ve been through. Lack of…object permanence, in a sense. Some days I didn’t even think it had really happened. It seemed like something that had happened to someone else.” Seven smiled sadly, indicating a bench off to the side of the thoroughfare. It was overgrown with weeds; brown paint peeling and chipping away from the metal. Kade followed her over and they both sat.

“I guess I can see that.” Kade acknowledged. “The whole…home invasion thing, from when we were twelve, it’s like that for me. I sort of think of it as a burned out patch in the tapestry of my life. Like a hole. I know it’s there…I have the memories of it, but it’s an absence rather than a presence. Negative space. It doesn’t affect anything else. Well, other than the memory problems, obviously.”

“Yeah. Like…bubbles, floating around? Difficult to put in order, lacking context?” Kade nodded. “But you’re right, it’s exactly that. A burn mark in the tapestry. We’re good at trauma.”

“Are we?”

“Well, we’re good at staying functional after going through it. Notice I didn’t say we handled it in a way that was…y’know…healthy.”

“I don’t know what handling trauma in a healthy way would look like.”

“Neither me. It’s not like you can erase it. Not sure what options there are other than overthinking it until it gets numb, then sort of…cordoning it off, psychologically. Quarantining it so it’s less likely to infect other parts of your life. It’s fucked up, sure, but what else can you do about it?”

“EMDR is apparently useful?” Kade ventured. Seven shrugged.

“Maybe I’ll give it a go someday. But the point I’m making is, for twenty years, very little actually touched us. We were always this…degree of separation or so from our own lives, just letting things happen to us. Letting other people take the lead, and just following along. We didn’t really make decisions, just hoped the decisions other people made for us would lead to moments…experiences that distracted us from the uh…the way the world was so utterly drained of colour.”

“Always just…hoping for these little fragments of time that made the rest of the nothing we were living through seem worth the struggle.”

“Exactly. We were just…there, but not really living. But it was what we had. And then Sara left us, and it all came crashing down. But it was different for you than it was for me.”

“Different how?”

“I don’t know, Kade…” Seven sighed, a hint of exasperation underlining her words: “Your world isn’t a fucking graveyard? That’s pretty different, from where I’m sitting?”

“Point taken.”

“Thing is, I can see a lot of bits and pieces of what you think about what happened, but I’m not Olivia…I’m not gonna make assumptions about how you feel. So I want you to tell me. How did it make you feel?” Seven’s voice was soft. Reassuring. Kade’s eyes widened and she took a deep breath before exhaling aggressively.

“It made me feel a lot of things. It hurt, for starters. It hurt more than anything had in a very, very long time. That’s probably the uh…the bedrock of it. It made me feel numb, but also like I’d been torn open. Like I was prone and vulnerable but emptied out. Because of the nature of it, y’know, the fact I’d felt safe and seen, but it turned out neither of those things had been true? One of the biggest immediate feelings I had was this sense that I was disgusting. Undesirable as a person. Not specifically romantically or sexually, but like…fundamentally? Like…as the real me, as Kade? Because that was the only difference that I could see: that she had wanted to spend her life with Kieran, but Kadence…functionally the same person, but - ideally - less miserable and broken…was a bridge too far. Not even worth considering trying to be with. In my head, I wasn’t even thinking about presentation, or the way my body was going to change, or anything like that. All I could see was that he was worth loving, but she - I - was not. And I was desperate to feel like it was possible for someone - anyone - to want me. To…I guess…walk back that perspective. To let me feel like I wasn’t…y’know…fucking doomed to have the way I thought she saw me be the only way anyone would see me for the rest of my life.”

“Yeah. It was like being presented with irrefutable data that showed that the real you wasn’t someone that anyone could ever want, or love, and that you should’ve just never told anyone and kept faking being a boy until it actually killed you.” Kade nodded. “I felt like that, too.”

“It’s funny. In a sense, deciding to transition is sort of like being born, but with full awareness of the world around you and this whole history of engaging with it that no longer entirely…fits. Everything’s new, everything and everyone you interact with takes on different qualities and shifts around you…and in that sense it was like my first experience out of the womb was being told that I wasn’t safe, couldn’t trust what people told me, and would never be loved. So that was…difficult to navigate, to say the least. Honestly, it still is. I haven’t really worked out how to deal with that, yet.” Kade shook her head, closing her eyes and letting her head fall back momentarily.

“Yeah. I think you probably handled it better than I did.”

“How did you handle it?”

“How do you think?” Seven asked, her tone icing over.

“Oh. That was when you…”

“Yeah. When I fucked up.” Seven shrugged. “I was so angry, and frustrated. Like…how could she lie to me like that? For all those years?”

“I don’t know if that’s particularly fair. Honestly, I don’t think she knew.”

“More like she didn’t care to know. Because she knew I was too much of a coward to do anything about it, so she knew she didn’t have to work out how she’d feel about it if I did. It was selfish. Cruel. She asked me to marry her, said she had wanted to do that for me, because I was a girl, and then left me for fucking being one,” Seven hissed through gritted teeth. “Do you…” She looked up, as if remembering who she was talking to. “Oh.” Kade raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips, nodding slowly.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think I might have some idea how that feels. But trust is a bet, y’know? You choose to make it, and when the wheel stops and the ball lands on black instead of red…unfortunately, that’s on you. Bleak, but…unavoidable.”

“Every time I think back on it, I get so fucking angry.”

“Honestly…all I really get is sad.

“But it’s infuriating. It’s not fucking fair.”

“Well, I hate to break it to you, but I’m starting to suspect that ‘fair’ might be a concept we lost access to when we decided to transition. Turns out, being perceived as a straight white dude? Lots of people seem to care a hell of a lot more about being ‘fair’ to you when they think you’re one of those than when they think you’re literally anything but.”

“Well…you’re not wrong.”

“But yeah. Maybe that’s the difference between us. I don’t really feel angry at her. I just…I wish things had been different. And even after all these months, thinking about it just makes me feel so desperately, achingly, inconsolably fucking sad. Because I loved being her friend. Her partner. I loved our relationship. I loved our life, and our friends, and the things we did and the people who we got to be together. I loved the way that I thought she loved it, too. I loved the way that I thought she loved me. Even in the midst of all the dissociation and dysphoria, it meant everything to me. But, ultimately, maybe I meant nothing to her, beyond this mask of a man that I never was. It certainly feels like, once it became obvious I wasn’t that, I was…nothing. It’s depressing as fuck.”

“Maybe that is all there is to it.” Seven paused, shaking her head.

“Olivia thinks so. She thinks the difference between us is that I turn my pain - self-loathing, frustration, loneliness - inward, and you turn it outward.”

“Olivia’s a fucking idiot.” Seven said with a quiet sigh, her tone neutral; her expression contemplative. “Just because she can read people, she assumes she’s seeing everything she needs to. She assumes what she sees is objective, and whole, and true. You spent decades slowly dying in a prison of anxiety and shame that you built yourself, brick by brick, from blueprints forced into your hands by a world that wanted you to not exist. You clawed your way out. It was brave and it took everything you had. And she took one look at you and called you a coward and an idiot. She doesn’t understand the way that bias warps observation. Like…at all.”

“Oh, and you do?” Kade snorted. “Sure you’re validating the struggle, but it was your struggle, too. Olivia’s was different. Owning your shit is fucking hard.”

“Y’know…” Seven started, looking down at the ground, her voice softening into something quiet and low and sad. Kade thought she looked almost childlike as her feet swung lazily in and out from under the bench: “I didn’t know what I was doing, that first time. It was just…anger, and hate, and rage...and then I felt it, like the world shifting on its axes. Once it started, I tried so hard to stop it, to take it back, but I couldn’t. Do you have any idea what that’s like, doing what I did in a moment of stupidity and anger…not even meaning to, not even knowing I could, and then not being able to change it, to fix it? Trust me, Kade: I own my shit. There was a reason I knew I couldn’t die. There were a hundred.” Kade frowned, considering that.

“So you couldn’t take it back. And you couldn’t punish yourself for it. So what, you weaponised it? Knowing how it felt; what it would lead to?” Seven shot Kade a patronising little glare.

“And now we’re back to you talking about things you don’t understand.”

“I understand pain. I understand that you’re okay with causing it.”

“How do you think systems of oppression get dismantled?”

“Okay, so show me what you’ve achieved.”

“What?”

“If your violence is necessary, what has it achieved?”

“Kade, they’re shadows.”

“If you really believed that, that’d make me a shadow too. So you wouldn’t be sitting here, asking me how I felt about Sara because it wouldn’t matter.” Kade sighed, shaking her head with a bitter little laugh: “You say I don’t understand, but I think I understand perfectly. I’ve felt what you’ve felt. I’ve been where you’ve been. So I think maybe I was wrong, before: it’s not that I’m sad and you’re angry, it’s that I hold myself accountable for my anger, and you fucking don’t. You don’t get to turn hurt into blame, Seven. Sara didn’t owe us the life we wanted with her, no matter how much it hurt to lose it. And you say you didn’t mean to do it but you still did it. And then you found someone else to blame, and you did it again. And then you found someone else to blame and you did it again. I think, on some level, you’re just in so much pain that you want to burn everything down. You want other people - other versions of you - to hurt like you do, and you’re angry that you think we don’t. You’re angry that we get to at least try to move forward with our lives when you’re stuck in place. You say you didn’t mean to do it that first time, and maybe that’s true. But I think you stayed frozen in that moment of rage, suspended in time, unable to let it go…because you know that the moment you really, truly do let it go, you’re going to have to feel it all. Like Olivia has to. Like I have to. Like everyone who can’t hide behind those fucking powers of yours has to, eventually. And ultimately, I think you’re using Helios as an excuse, as a way of prolonging it, because they fit. Because they’ve been there before, after, and adjacent to all your worst days you’ve had in recent memory.”

“Y’know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think there are things you need to know.” Seven got to her feet, grabbing Kade by the elbow and pulling her up. “Come on.”

“Why? What’re you doing?”

“I’m going to show you what kind of people we’re dealing with. I’m going to show you why I do what I do.”

The two of them were silent as they made their way to the Helios Foundation forecourt. Once there, Seven held out her arm, indicating for Kade to stop.

“What now?” Kade asked.

“They’re coming. Trust me.” Seven nodded towards the entrance. A figure phased into existence in front of the building’s front doors.

“Damien?!” Kade and Seven yelped out simultaneously, turning to look at each other - creating a momentary infinity mirror of shock and alarm - before turning back to him. Damien said nothing. Three more figures appeared - these ones unfamiliar. All men in their mid-thirties, Kade estimated, with buzz-cut hair and neutral expressions; all wearing grey t-shirts, black jeans and slightly bulky windbreakers. Kade noted the holstered guns strapped to their belts. They flanked Damien on either side. To Kade, they had the look of a security detail. Not that numbers would do any of them any good with Seven there.

“You’re with Helios…?” Seven growled. Kade watched her posture shift, her back hunching slightly and her hands moving out to either side of her hips, palms forward.

“Wait. I want answers.” Kade said, reaching out, letting her fingertips make contact with Seven’s right arm. Seven glanced over at her, nodding grudgingly…reluctantly. Damien sighed.

“Okay. Answers then. Let’s get up to speed. Your respective versions of me died in the Siege of Edenglassie. The Incident. Blue Sunday. Whatever you want to call it. But I’m him. I knew you growing up. An Alter of you, at least. My version of you is uh…one of my bosses. She wanted me to come here, because…” He trailed off suggestively. Seven snorted.

“Because you want to know why I’m here, and she thought I might be less likely to murder you on sight?”

“Yeah, basically.” He admitted with a pained smile.

“Brave.” Seven admitted. “But, hate to break it to you…the only thing stopping me right now is her,” She nodded towards Kade: “So you might want to keep talking.”

“This was your project, wasn’t it?’ Kade interrupted, her eyes narrowed. “Your work thing. We were the leads you were tracking down. The setback you mentioned was Alice’s World.”

“I prefer to lie as little as possible.” Damien nodded. “We’re not the bad guys, Kade.”

“Not lying isn’t being a good guy. It’s just…strategy. The less lies you tell, the easier it is to keep a story together. Am I wrong?”

“You’re not.” He admitted.

“So when I caught up with you, before my world ended?” Seven asked.

“Before you ended it…” Damien reminded her.

“You know I could literally turn you inside out faster than it takes me to blink, right?” She asked. Damien responded with a slow, single nod.

“Yes. It was me. After that first night, they assigned me to keep tabs on you.”

“What first night?” Kade asked.

“The night of the Siege, where I had to defend myself from twenty fucking guys in the ruins of my fucking home.” Seven clarified.

“It was thirty-six, actually.”

“Not…helping.” Seven growled.

“We didn’t understand what you were, then.” Damien offered as an explanation: “We needed to know what we were dealing with. Which is why they sent me.”

“Because you looked like someone I knew. Someone I cared about.” He nodded again. “This is just…so absolutely and completely on-brand for you assholes.” Seven sighed, raising her hand to massage the bridge of her nose, her eyes flickering briefly closed.

“And me? When we had lunch in the city?” Kade interjected: “I hadn’t even met Olivia at that point.”

“We wanted to…check in.” Damien admitted. “See if the others had made contact with you.”

“Right, so your questions about talking to myself in the mirror were - "

“ - Gathering intel.” Damien said. Kade clenched and unclenched her fists. His self-righteous tone frustrated her more than his actual words.

“So that’s what it’s been. For like…a decade now, since the Siege of Edenglassie, every time we’ve seen one another, it’s been that?”

“Yes.” He nodded.

“How many girls are you doing this with?” Kade asked.

“You make it sound worse than it is.” Damien replied. “Most of your Alters in the Local Network knew a version of me. They had formative experiences with a version of me. It’s…efficient.”

“You’re so full of shit, Damien.” Kade sneered.

“You people are an unknown quantity. Potentially very dangerous, I mean, look at her,” Damien insisted, pointing at Seven. “Wouldn’t you want to keep an eye on people who can potentially do what she can?”

“To what end, though?” Seven bit back, turning to Kade: “You notice they never tried to kill me, or any of us? They just watch us…follow us…try to use us? That first night, they were trying to take me in, not deal with a threat. They’re not trying to protect anyone from me, they just want access to my powers. And yours.” Kade nodded slowly, letting the information marinate. Her focus was divided. Emotionally, her larger fixation was:

“I thought you were my friend.”

“I am your friend.” Damien insisted.

“No, you wore his skin to get information.” Kade threw back at him. She could see Seven in her peripheral vision, folding her arms over her chest and nodding.

“I mean, not literally but…yes. Two things can be true at once.”

“You motherf - "

“ - So why are you here, Seven?” Damien asked, cutting Kade off.

“Because Kade is like me. She’s not like the other Alters. Do…you guys have a classification system for our powers?”

“We do, yes…” Damien confirmed.

“Yeah, I figured. Seems like the kind of bullshit you’d all be into. Well, whatever mine is, hers is the same. Or it will be eventually. So I want to trade her.”

“What?!” Kade shouted, shoving Seven. “What the fuck?”

“For what?” Damien countered. Seven leaned in towards Kade.

“You see how quick that was? This is what we are to them. I know you don’t trust me, but…trust me, okay? I would never.” Seven pulled back, meeting Kade’s eyes with a meaningful nod. Kade glared, dipping her head slightly. “I want you to take down the Local Network.” Seven kept one eye on Damien, angling her face to whisper in Kade’s ear: “I’m reading him. Right now, he’s thinking about whether it would be worth it. Thinking about what they could do with you; with my powers. Holding entire worlds hostage; scaling up their level of control so they don’t have to stick to operating in the shadows - spying and infiltrating worlds like they do currently - building a multiversal empire, and - "

“ - And let you loose in the larger multiverse? We can’t do that.” Damien concluded.

“How are you ‘reading’ him?” Kade whispered back to Seven.

“It’s not Alters Olivia and I - and you, once you work out how - can read, it’s multiverse travellers. Moving between worlds, it leaves your thoughts exposed, kind of, in a way we can pick up on - " Seven explained.

“ - Am I interrupting something, here?” Damien asked, his tone shifting towards exasperation.

“I’m deliberating with my hostage. Problem?” Seven snapped. Damien shrugged expressively, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, cool. Anyway…” She turned back to Kade. “I have been keeping them away from us the only way I know how - with fear and chaos - but make no mistake, Kade, I am not the bad guy in this equation.”

“How many people have you killed?” Kade raised both eyebrows in incredulity: “How many Alters? If what you’re saying is true, this hasn’t been you protecting us, it’s been you giving them a fucking sales pitch, no?”

“They’re sha - "

“ - Say ‘they’re shadows’ one more time and I will slap the shit out of you: if it feels pain, it’s wrong to be okay with causing it pain. I’m not saying it’s never justified, but so far as I can tell, it’s your only fucking play.”

“Like you could do better?”

“We covered this: I have done better, I’m literally you without the fucking Genocide, you crazy bitch.”

“I’m just this girl, y’know? I’m doing my fucking best,” Seven insisted. Kade shook her head at Seven, turning away. She focussed on Damien. For weeks, she had felt Olivia’s mind reaching out and touching hers, probing without intent or purpose. She thought about that; the feeling of it. She decided to do what she had done with the Otherwhere…to simply want it; try to make it happen. To read him. Her eyes narrowed and she simply…imagined hearing his thoughts. Imagined seeing his memories and experiences. Her eyes widened. She could see, in her minds eye, a version of herself, just like recalling the contours of one of her own memories. Cee, Damien called her. Her nose was aquiline, lacking the bump at the top that all the other Alters - except Maya - had. She had a severe scowl on her plump, carefully painted lips. Her cheekbones and brow were…different. Her chin was smaller. Facial Feminisation Surgery, was Kade’s guess. She was angry at Damien; irritated, seemingly, telling him to be more proactive. Damien’s thoughts flashed over a different version of Edenglassie. She saw ruins at the margins of the city-centre; a sky flooded with dirty orange clouds and perimeter fences ringing hubs of housing and commercial structures where, on her world, suburban sprawl would have been. She saw airships in the sky and raised Mag-Lev rails arcing out of the city centre. Kade probed deeper into his thoughts, trying to isolate what Seven had claimed she’d seen. She couldn’t. She decided to try something else:

“If I go with you, what happens then?” She asked Damien loudly, before focussing back in on his thoughts. The first thing she saw were laboratories. Doctors. Long, person-sized metal tables and surgical equipment. She saw herself, dead-eyed and waiting, flanked by men with guns shouting orders as people ran from them. She saw another version of her, head shaved with small, circular metal fixtures drilled into the left side of her skull - gaunt and pale - with a single tear sliding slowly down her left cheek. Flashing through her mind: mappings of pathways between parallel worlds, colourised to denote classification and control, clusters and designations and…fuck. Kade could see it. Seven was right. If anything she had been underselling it.

“We’d train you, help you work out how to use your powers.” Damien replied.

“He’s lying.” Seven whispered.

“Yeah, fucking obviously.” Kade shot back.

“You read him?”

“I’m a quick study.” Kade explained. Seven nodded, clearly impressed.

"But we can’t take down the Local Network,” Damien reiterated. Seven rolled her eyes.

“Either you do it for us, or Kade and I do it ourselves.”

“Why are you still doing this?” Kade whispered. “You made your point. I’m sold. They’re the fucking worst.”

“Information.” Seven clarified. “Let’s see what else we can get, okay?” Kade shrugged.

“You can’t. It can’t be done from the inside.” Damien stated plainly.

“Oh, I assure you: it can. It’s just a matter of figuring out how.” Seven raised a hand and flicked her wrist outward. The three men accompanying Damien fell immediately to the ground. Kade watched, confused, as they seemed to struggle to pull themselves up, as if being held down under the weight of an unseen force, groaning with exertion. After a few moments, they stopped, splayed out on the ground, their breathing heavy; laboured. “Do you know how our powers work, Damien?”

“We know what you can do, you don’t need to - "

“ - That’s not what I asked. Do you know how they work? Because I do. Would you like me to explain it to you?” Damien nodded, holding his hands up as if in supplication; as if pleading with her to be reasonable. “It’s just energy. Y’know? I can feel it all around me. Everything…vibrates. Everything in the universe has a kind of charge. Its own…’resonance’. Even the universe itself has a kind of…over-arching resonance, tying everything within it together. All universes do. And every universes resonance is unique. I think it’s that part that keeps them from just…blending into one another. I know you know this bit. I’m pretty sure the gizmos you guys use to bounce around the multiverse work off of that principle. I’m not sure how, but…” Seven looked at her hand, slowly rotating her wrist, alternately extending and bending her fingers. “I don’t just feel it, I can manipulate it. Kade can too.” Seven paused, turning to Kade: “I knew we were the same the second you made that shockwave back on my world. I felt it.” She turned back to Damien. “She has the same powers, just…less practice. She hasn’t been forced to use it the way I have. All the other Alters, they have a little piece of what we have. They’re just…shadows of us. Echoes. They all have their little tricks, but it’s different for us, Damien. All I had to do just now, with your friends…was think about their energy. Focus in on the way they vibrated. And I just…” Seven mimed manipulating a volume knob: “Turned up the gravity.”

“You increased their density…?” Damien asked, looking as if he was trying desperately to understand what Seven was talking about.

“No, that’d be silly.” Seven laughed. “I just made them more affected by it.”

“How?”

“Great question. It really gets to the core of the issue, here. The way our powers work? They just do. I just have to think it. I go ‘hey, what if this energy - " Seven pointed in the direction of the security detail “ - was quite a bit more affected by gravity than all the other energy, here’, and if I want that to be the case…it is. Unlike you, we don’t need to understand the science. We don’t need to build it out into gadgets. We can just feel it. The energy and the way it all vibrates. We can make those vibrations do what we want. There’s not really a limit to it. Not that I’ve found, anyway. It’s just a matter of…how creative we’re willing to get with that fundamental force that holds the universe together.”

“What about Alice’s World? Anna’s World? The Alters thought you let something in, from outside the Local Network.” Kade asked. Seven turned to her, her brows furrowing.

“What? No. Nothing like that. I just…shifted the dial on those universe’s vibrations.”

“You did what?” Damien murmured, eyes widening.

“What? What do you know?” Kade turned to him, stepping forward.

“The…Local Network, the way it works is that the pylon in the Helios Foundation buildings exists in the same place and time across all these different worlds. We’re not like you, we can’t just…jump between worlds with no consequences. Over time, our minds break down, and then eventually our bodies; the vibration of our matter doesn’t match universes other than our own and eventually we…get rejected. Like a foreign organ in a new host-body. Something about the way you were all created means that doesn’t happen to you, your matter just adapts to the vibration of the world you’re on. The point of the Local Network was to try and create a cluster of worlds that we could move within without that risk. The reason we chose these worlds is that they’re already in a…a spectrum of resonant frequencies. The Local Network universes…for lack of a better term, harmonise. The ’Network’ is a laboratory. It was never meant to trap you here, because none of you were meant to exist. You were a fluke, something to do with how the Local Network was created.” He looked towards Seven, genuine fear in his eyes. “Theoretically, if you’re able to vary the vibration of a given universe, you could end up disrupting that harmony and causing a cascade.”

“Like the thing that happened on those worlds could happen on all the worlds in the Local Network…?” Kade clarified. Damien nodded.

“This explains why people acted the way they did on fifty-five and seven-eighteen: the subjective experience of your vibrations slowly becoming less compatible with the universe you’re in, it…ends up looking a lot like psychosis. It also explains why it never affected any of you.”

“Fifty-five and seven-eighteen?” Kade’s eyes narrowed.

“Annabelle’s World. Alice’s world.” Damien clarified.

“Good to know.” Seven said coldly, crossing her arms across her chest. “So my main takeaway is that, if Kade and I destroy the pylon, we destroy the Local Network. It’ll just…reintegrate into the rest of the Multiverse, like it was never cordoned off in the first place.” Damien’s eyes widened.

“No, you can’t do that - "

“ - I mean…I can and I will. Consider yourself lucky that I want you to live to see it.” Seven glowered. Turning to Kade, she nodded to the left: “Come on, let’s go. We need to have a private conversation about this.” Kade felt the Otherwhere open. She saw Seven disappear into it. She could feel its existence, and Seven’s presence within it, and it would have been the easiest thing in the world to simply blink through herself. She turned to Damien with a small frown.

“Y’know, I could have sworn she told Olivia and I that she’d learned her lesson about trusting Alters.” Kade shrugged, holding up a hand, raising an eyebrow, and theatrically snapping her fingers as she willed the Otherwhere closed. She could no longer feel it. Or Seven. Somewhere deep inside, she could feel her absence, like she’d felt Alice’s; Faith’s. That was that. Seven was dead. “Guess not.”

Mountains of Madness

“So now the question becomes…where do we go from here?” Damien shook his head incredulously as his ‘security detail’ slowly got to their feet. Kade wondered if Seven’s stunt would result in any long term damage. She was certain that fighting against heightened gravity couldn’t be good for the human body. Instinctively she assumed it would be a bit like getting stuck in a person-sized centrifuge and spun around a bit.

“Thank you - "

“ - Don’t thank me, Damien. She had to fucking go. She killed my friends. I’d do anything for the people I care about.” Kade concluded pointedly, folding her arms across her chest. “You should know. You’ve been impersonating one of them for…what? A decade?”

“It wasn’t all a lie, Kade - "

“ - Yeah, cool, but how the fuck can I know that? Turns out…I can read some of your thoughts, see some of your actions. But I can’t know how you feel.” Kade watched as his expression hardened, as his chin angled upwards and his eyes angled down at her.

“It doesn’t matter. You can’t do what she could do. Not yet, maybe not ever.”

“And there it is. ‘Do what I say, or else’.”

“Kade…be reasonable.”

“No. I’m sick of this shit.” Kade took a deep breath, held out her hand, and felt for the vibrations. It came incredibly naturally to her, like making an Otherwhere. All she had to do was think it. She imagined their energy getting heavier, more affected by gravity. She watched as both Damien and the security detail fell to their knees, their hands pressed against concrete, their elbows straining to keep their bodies off of the ground. “I’m not an idiot. I’m not a coward. I might be crazy, but I’m not stupid. I’ve spent a fucking lifetime being told who I am and how to act - mostly by random fucking guys who have no idea who I am beyond incorrectly believing I’m one of them - and I am just…beyond fucking done.”

“Kade,” Damien sputtered: “We’re friends,”

“God, it’s like you don’t even know who the fuck you’re talking to. Like you think I’m a version of me who still believes you’re my version of you. A version of me who might have actually given a shit about your opinion. Damien…you just threatened me. Are you fucking stupid?” Kade pulled her hand back, allowing gravity to go back to normal. Damien slowly got to his feet - not taking his eyes off of her as he did so - his legs shaky and uncertain beneath him. The rest of them stayed low to the ground, gasping for air. Damien and Kade stood, metres apart, staring at one another. “So where do we go from here?”

“Where do you want to go from here?” He asked.

“Better.” Kade paused, considering. Before she had a chance to continue, her vision started to blur. She blinked repeatedly, then realised what was happening; felt that familiar push of resistance. Kade’s fists clenched as she fought to keep herself there. She could see a smirk forming on Damien’s face, blurring in and out of focus. Behind him, the Helios Foundation building seemed to shake out of sync with the surrounding buildings, wobbling in the centre of her vision. Kade gritted her teeth, fighting it, but was unable to hold on. She felt herself falling back and into an Otherwhere.

As her vision corrected, Kade looked around herself. Mountains. Snow. Cold lanced through her and she instinctively went to wrap her arms around her chest. It looked like something out of a postcard from Switzerland; peaks like tigers teeth, cut from black rock and coated in white snow under an overcast sky, as far as the eye could see. She felt the presence before she saw it, turning to her left and pulling her arms away from herself on reflex; holding them up in front of her. It was a barrier. She had put up a barrier. Something slammed into it - hard - pushing her down to her knees. They sunk into wet, cold snow as she kept her hands up, feeling this invisible thing bearing down on her, nothing but whatever she had put between her and it protecting her. Her mind going back to what Seven had said, she thought about vibrations; let herself reach out for them…find them in the seemingly empty space in front of her.

“There you are.” She murmured to herself. It was nothing but energy; a swirling miasma of raw force, vibrating through the air in front of her. She couldn’t see it but she could feel it; visualise it. Her barrier held it back like a sea-wall resisting an incoming tide. It pressed her back further. Her knees widened apart and her back arched awkwardly as she was forced back into the snow, the barrier flush against her, beginning to crush her between it and solid ground. She felt the pressure on her chest, groaning as her ribcage strained. Working through an impulse to panic, cocking her head to the side, Kade wondered if she could just…undo it. Unmake it. She closed her eyes and imagined it dissipating, and began to feel the downward pressure ease. Opening her eyes, she stared out into the empty space in front of her, seeing - in her minds eye - the roiling body of force starting to subside before disappearing completely. Cautiously, she looked around, letting her mind reach out, testing the space around her for anything else that might be there. Nothing. As she got to her feet, the world around her started to blur again. This time she let it, watching as her surroundings changed, re-emerging in what looked like the Edenglassie from Damien’s mind. Overhead, the thickly clouded and burnt orange sky…around her, ruined and collapsed office buildings and residential towers. Around her, in the debris and rubble, Kade heard shifting and creaking; the grinding and whining of metal against concrete.

“Come on!’ She called out. “What now?!” The blast came suddenly and from behind her, throwing Kade forward and onto the ground. Her ears ringing, she groaned, instinctively rolling herself onto her back. She found herself looking up at what appeared to be some kind of giant, haphazardly thrown-together creature made up of rubble and rebar and rusted sheets of scrap. Slowly, it raised itself up from the ground, the sounds of mechanical strain assaulting her ears…all jagged metal plates and debris lashed together - screeching with the exertion of motion - articulating into approximations of legs; a torso; arms. At its full height, it towered over her: maybe fifty or sixty metres high. Slowly, Kade got to her feet. From behind and around it, soldiers rushed forward - over the rubble and into the clearing - clad in light, tactical body armour. Twenty…thirty…more. Their neatly segmented grey-black helmets were angled towards her, and their full-face black reflective visors glinted orange, reflecting the murky sky. They formed up around her, cocking large guns menacingly, but remaining silent. “What the fuck?” Kade murmured to herself, frozen in place, prone on her back, looking up while her entire body shook with fear and adrenaline. She could feel her heart hammering violently in her chest. She forced herself to breathe, realising that her body had stopped doing it automatically. Her mind raced, unable to properly process the inputs, unable to pull herself out of the immediacy of the thought that she was a millisecond from the end, that her present was simply a freeze frame before the soldiers opened fire or the giant metal thing towering over her took a single, simple step forward to crush her into nothing. From somewhere deep in the back of her mind, she heard Seven’s voice echoing out:

You notice they never tried to kill me?

Slowly, warily, Kade pulled herself up and to her feet. Her eyes remained carefully trained on the barrels of the nearest soldiers’ guns.

“Come quietly,” one of them said, their voice echoing out with a hint of reverb as if over a PA system. Kade said nothing. She reached out with her mind, feeling for the contours of the vibrations around her. Slowly, her heart-beat calmed. She let her hands sit at her sides, palms facing forward. She raised her chin an inch or two, staring down at them defiantly.

“I’ll never let Helios have me.” Kade stated loudly and with a confidence she didn’t feel: “So you might as well just kill me. Because I’d rather fucking die than let you turn me into your personal Seven.” The soldier who had spoken raised a hand to near where their ear would be, pausing before their segmented helmet bobbed up and down in a small nod.

“Affirmative.” Kade heard.

That was when all hell broke loose. Kade threw her hands up as the soldiers rushed forward. Bullets bounced off her shield like rain off of a tin roof. She saw one of the men fall, hit by ricocheting shrapnel, and another stop - stunned - as their visor cracked from an impact. Kade pulled her hands in to her chest, before throwing them out - visualising a shockwave like the one she’d accidentally created on Seven’s world - and threw them all back and away from her. With a sweep of her hand, she flung the soldiers who tried to get back to their feet away and into the distance. It all felt easy. Natural. Like her Otherwheres, all she had to do was think it - will it - and it happened. But then the mechanical horror lurched forward, its right leg raising up and off the ground. It bathed her in shadow as it shifted over her. Throwing her hands up, Kade created another shockwave, watching as the leg just…shattered - blowing apart from the middle out - raining down debris and chunks of metal that she deflected with another shield of force. The giant construct tilted, staggered, and began to fall. Like a giant tree under the axe, it creaked and toppled backwards, velocity rapidly increasing until it slammed into the dirt and rubble with a deafening thunder-clap of a sound, kicking up a vast cloud of brown and orange dirt and dust. Kade looked down at her hands. She looked out at the rapidly mushrooming dust cloud, at bodies off in the distance, at the few soldiers trying shakily to get back to their feet nearby.

“Yeah…I can kinda see how this might turn someone into a monster…” she muttered to herself, shaking her head. Sighing, she tried to create an Otherwhere. She failed to. It felt like when she’d tried on Alice’s world, like there was something blocking her, filling her mind with static. Kade reached out with her mind, feeling her way through the vibrations of the place. It all felt…temporary, like one of her own Otherwheres, but there was something else. Something…unstable. “You’re having trouble holding this in place, aren’t you?!” She called out to no one in particular. “You know it’s just a matter of time: if I push hard enough, I’m going to beat you!” Kade closed her eyes, going through the motions. She imagined herself back outside the Helios Foundation building, where she’d originally been. The static began to build, but she kept pushing it, holding onto the image. The static increased. She gritted her teeth and clenched her fists by her side, forcing her way through it. Finally, something gave out. She opened her eyes. She wasn’t back outside the Helios Foundation. She was…surrounded by white. Beneath her feet, above her head and in every direction was blank, featureless white. Except in front of her. Directly ahead, she saw a single figure, on its’ knees. It wore what looked like a hospital gown. It was panting; wheezing. Its head was cleanly shaven and on the left side, Kade saw glinting circles of metal. Cautiously, Kade started to walk forward.

“Stop,” She heard her own voice - weak and shaky. Kade slowly raised a hand to cover her mouth, realising that it was the Alter she’d seen when she read Damien.

“What did they do to you?” Kade murmured.

“I thought I was going to help people…” The Alter said. Her words were weak and shaky and pitiful. Kade rushed forward, dropping to her knees beside her. “No, please, don’t get too close. As soon as I get my strength back, they’ll trigger me again…”

“What do you mean?”

“These,” The Alter raised a single, shaky hand to point at the circular discs embedded in the side of their head: “They use me to run programs. I used to be able to make little worlds, just for me, and now…”

“Fuck,” Kade breathed. The Alter looked up at her, desperation in her eyes.

“Please end it. You have to end it. I can’t do it myself.”

“What? No, I’m getting you out of here - "

“ - You don’t understand, I am ‘here’. I’m trapped in this place, this blank slate, until they need to…” The Alter’s bottom lip trembled slightly. “Until they force me to drag in a cell mate. To run a scenario they’ve designed through my brain. To make a world and…”

“Trap one of us there. Beat one of us into submission?” The Alter nodded.

“It’s not just us. Their people too. Others. Sometimes not even people - things. They make monsters through me.” The Alters’ voice cracked dangerously: “Nightmares. To hurt the people they want hurt. Train the people they want trained. And then, when it’s…done, it’s just…this. Cold, white nothing. Until the next time.”

“What’s your name?” Kade whispered.

“I…I don’t remember.” The Alter whispered, her eyes becoming glassy: “They took it from me. They took everything from me. Please end it. I’m begging you.”

“I can’t, I - "

“ - Don’t be a coward.” The Alter pleaded through gritted teeth. “Do it for me, not in spite of you.” Kade slowly nodded.

“If I do it, I’ll die here. This place will blink out of existence and it’ll take me with it.” The Alter shook her head.

“They can’t do what we can do. This place is me, but it isn’t mine. It’s theirs. They used my power to build this little world that they keep me in, that I have no control over, that they force me to make little worlds inside. Without me here, it’ll still be here. But without me…you’ll be able to leave. If you don’t trust me, just…look at me. Know that I want you to make them pay.” The Alter let her head drop, shaking it slowly. “I swear…I thought I was going to help people.”

“I will make them pay. I promise you.” Kade remembered what Olivia had told her about what Seven had done to her on Alice’s world. Reaching out slowly, her hand shaking, she tenderly let it cup around the Alters’ cheek. She focussed in, imagining the girls’ brain…trying to simply...turn it off. Stop the vibrations of her. Stop all the little patterns and routines and interactions that she was made up of. The Alter went limp, collapsing to the ground. Kade took a moment, letting her eyes fall closed. She could feel tears squeezing their way out from between her eyelids - leaving her lashes damp - beginning to drip slowly down her cheeks. She wiped away at them angrily, taking a deep breath, before visualising the front of the Helios Foundation in Anna’s world. Her vision began to blur out of focus.

Doors

“Damien!” Kade shouted as he came back into view. “What the actual fuck?!” She watched as the security detail went for their holstered guns and held up her hand, flicking her wrist with a quiet growl, watching them go flying. It was as simple as breathing, now…the connection between intent and power. She was fairly sure they were dead, flying out of the granite-paved square in front of the Helios Foundation building and rag-dolling limply along the asphalt. She didn’t care anymore. If they wanted a monster, Kade was willing to give them one. Damien took a step back as Kade approached.

“I’m sorry, it was - "

“ - It was fucking what?”

“Insurance.”

“If this was some cheesy fucking Marvel movie, I’d be making a dumb joke about your premiums going up right now, but instead I’m going to give you five…goddamn…seconds to tell me why I shouldn’t disembowel you.” Damien tripped on his heel, falling backwards, prone and on the ground. “I just killed an Alter. Why?”

“Kade, just - "

“ - What the fuck did you do to her?!”

“It was a safeguard, it - "

“ - She…”

“Kade, what do you expect us to do? All we have is tech. You and Seven are…you’re…”

“Freaks? Mistakes? Abominations? Fucking what?”

“Anomalies. You don’t negotiate with anomalies, you contain them.”

“And exploit them. And study them, and control them, and weaponise them. Take something that challenges your control and bend it into a shape that suits you. Right? You turned that girl into a fucking prison.”

“Kade, please. Look at yourself, at Seven, what else were we meant to do?”

“See reason. Use logic. How many times did you attack Seven? How did it work out for you?”

“You’re not her, not yet.”

“Do you genuinely think that powers I don’t know how to use are less dangerous to you than powers she did? Have you ever seen Akira? I’m Tetsuo running on trial and error, here.” She held out a hand. “I have no idea what’s going to happen. If I try to stop you breathing, is it going to work like I’m hoping it will, or do I pop you like a fucking pimple?”

“Kade, stop,”

“If you want me to stop, stop pissing me off!” Kade took a deep breath. “Damien. I don’t want to hurt you. Your boss was right. Looking like someone I care about? Smart. But pitting me against a lobotomised version of me who you’ve turned into a weapon? Significantly less so.”

“What can I do?”

“You can give me information. I want to know: why was Seven so much more powerful than the other Alters?”

“Our theory is that…Seven being at the heart of the unification event - "

“ - Damien. Don’t fuck around.”

“The Siege. The…the Incident. When we linked the pylons across worlds - when we created the Local Network - Seven, on her world, was at the centre of it all. It was an unexpected variable. An anomaly. Her powers - her ability to manipulate vibrations - must be a symptom of that. And because alternate selves across universes are…entangled, those powers must have articulated throughout the Local Network. To other versions of Seven.”

“You think.”

“Yes, Kade. I think. I don’t understand String Theory. That’s what the Local Network is based on. What all of our tech is based on. Do you?”

“Fuck you.”

“Those of us that do understand it - our researchers - might have been able to work it out, but Seven wasn’t about to let us take her in to do tests.”

“You say it like you didn’t try and consistently fail.”

“You’re right. We did try. We did fail.”

“Good. Glad we’re on the same page. Don’t fucking forget it. Next: do you know why she and I had the same powers?”

“Your world and Seven’s world are…close. Essentially neighbours.”

“So that’d be your theory: that it’s all because I was close enough to Seven to get caught up in the blast radius?”

“It’s all I can think of. But we didn’t even know you had powers until today.”

“How could you not? Haven’t you been tracking me? Pretending to be my fucking friend, once every so often for a fucking decade so you could keep tabs on me?” Kade snarled. Damien took a deep breath, clearly attempting to remain composed.

“We have…detection implements. They require proximity. In the past, when we tested you - ”

“ - Tested? When? How?” Kade demanded. Damien, holding up one hand as if to say ‘hold on’, while the other slowly reaching into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a small, circular object with a glowing screen.

“When we met up, I used this. Your readings were always baseline for an Alter, nothing more. We classified you on the same level as the others.”

“‘The Others’. You mean my friends.”

“Yes.”

“And the Alter I killed?”

“Higher.”

“And me, now?” Kade took a step closer to Damien. He glanced down at the screen, pressing a couple of buttons on the side of the device.

“Higher still. Like Seven.”

“Who was she?”

“What?”

“Your fucking weapon, Damien. Was she just a girl like me, before what you did to her?” Kade paused, her eyes narrowing as Damien notably did not provide a response. “She was, wasn’t she?”

“Can’t you read me, now?” Damien asked, his voice quiet and shaky. Kade nodded, the left edge of her lip curling up into a sneer.

“I can. But I want to hear you say it.”

“Yes. She was an Alter who could create pocket dimensions. We…brought her in.” He finally confirmed, with a single, shallow nod.

“You mean you lied to her. Told her she’d be doing good, and then stuck things in her brain and used her to hurt people. Trapped her in an empty fucking void until you needed her. That about right?”

“Kade. I promise you. We’re not the bad guys.”

“So…” Kade paused, considering: “You’ve said that a couple of times. So did Seven. Let me tell you how I feel about that: what I keep thinking, every time I hear it. One time, when I was a kid, I was watching a docu-drama with my father. It was about Hitler’s rise to power. There was this one part where Hitler kicked a dog. I remember getting really frustrated. And my dad didn’t understand why. His position was that Hitler was bad. Now…no argument there, but the thing of it is, Damien, that wasn’t historically accurate, and…” Kade paused, making deliberate, meaningful eye contact: “Insisting that for a person to be bad, that they must be all bad, in all ways, creates a blind spot. It does this thing to your brain where…you see someone do a thing that’s good - even neutral - and you draw a line in the proverbial sand. You differentiate them from other people who are ‘truly’ bad. I guess, to put it simply, I’ve always felt like it’s important to remember that someone can both care about dogs - deeply, authentically - and be one of the worst people the world has ever seen. Y’know? So I’m looking at you, and I guess I can see what the appeal is for you, here. Namely: all the bad, it happens to people who aren’t you. And you can live with that, because self-interest is easier and safer. But in the end, this shit doesn’t make you safe, Damien. It makes you complicit. So when you say ‘we’re not the bad guys’, what I’m hearing is ‘but we never kicked a dog’, and that distinction means nothing to me. Fucking nothing. What I’ve seen is enough. I don’t need an evil cherry-on-top to call this shovel a spade. I know what Helios is. I know what you are, by - at minimum - association. So…simply? Fucking spare me.” She paused, watching Damien completely fail to formulate a response. “I think we’re done here.” She concluded, moving forward.

“Okay. Okay,” Damien held up one hand, pleading: “Kade. Just wait.”

“No.” She shrugged. She walked forward and past him, towards the entrance of the Helios Foundation building, leaving him lying on the ground.

“What are you doing?” Damien called out, apparently not getting up to follow her.

“I’m going to end this.” She called back over her shoulder. Reaching the doors, Kade reached out a hand. She felt a brief rush of satisfaction as she watched them crumple and explode backwards, flying off their hinges and into the building itself. For the first time, she stepped inside. Beneath her feet: slick, glassy black tiles. Above her head: a high ceiling punctuated with small down-lights and ostentatious, Art Deco chandeliers; all symmetrical glass cylinders arranged in tapered circles, articulating downward like upside-down wedding cakes and glowing with what seemed like singular sources of light emanating from their respective centres. A rush of fresh, heavily conditioned air gently buffeted her as it rushed through the newly created hole in the front of the building.

“Kadence, I assume.” The familiar voice echoed around the bare, dark lobby.

“God,” Kade rolled her eyes, turning in the direction of the voice. The Alter - who she immediately recognised from Damien’s mind as ‘Cee’ - strode towards her from a bank of elevators located towards the far left side of the lobby, her sharp heels clicking rhythmically on black tile. Cee wore a - presumably tailor-made; it hugged the contours of her body obnoxiously well - dark green jumpsuit with a matching, asymmetric cape draped around her shoulders. A thin belt made up of narrow gold links hung around her waist, dipping slightly off the hip on one side, tailing off beyond where the ends met. In person, Kade was even more certain about the FFS: the only way she could immediately think to describe Cee’s face was deliberate. “Because of course this is where we’re at. Cliches and corporate-wear.”

“My name is…” Cee paused a moment for a tiny, private smile, not breaking her stride. “Cadence. With a ‘C’. Please feel free to call me ‘Cee’; everyone does around here.” As she approached Kade, she smiled warmly, extending her hand. Palm up. Kade looked down at it like she’d just been offered a snake.

“Like…do you want me to kiss it? What’re we doing here? Also, in what universe would any version of me dress like that?”

“A universe where you actually had money, one imagines.” Cee shrugged pleasantly. Kade raised an eyebrow.

“Guess we know why your version of our name starts with a ‘C’.” Kade deadpanned. Cee smirked, considering this. She withdrew her hand. “Anyway, what are you meant to be, like…upper management?”

“Well, the highest point of escalation you will be speaking to today, certainly.”

“Cute. Where’s the pylon?”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary.”

“I just dismantled Damien’s ‘insurance policy’. Do I need to dismantle you, too?” Cee shrugged nonchalantly.

“As amusing as it would be to see your best attempt at doing so, I don’t think that will be necessary either. And, to be crystal clear, Kadence, I am not advising against the destruction of the pylon, I am offering to explain to you why the dissolution of the Local Network would not be in your best interests.”

“Please. Blow my fucking mind.”

“Thus far, you have seen our organisation acting in the interests of avoiding conflict with your…” Cee’s lip curled with pointed disdain: “Little group of ‘Alters’. If the walls come down, this policy shifts. Dramatically.”

“I tend to associate nebulous threats with a lack of capacity for follow-through.” Kade countered, folding her arms over her chest.

“Absolutely. Entirely valid. Let me clarify. You are powerful, but you are one of many. You cannot be there to protect all of them, at all times. We specialise in subterfuge. We…will kill…your friends.” Cee stated with a measured, cordial smile. Kade stepped forward, bringing her almost nose-to-nose with Cee. The Alter didn’t flinch.

“If you touch a single one of them, I will tear your entire fucking universe apart. And you know that’s not hyperbole.”

“Kadence.” Cee raised a single, condescending eyebrow. “I am responsible for the oversight of the Local Network project. This is simply one of many projects that Helios manages, to which we have dedicated a relatively insignificant portion of our resources and focus. I would prefer to stay within budget. It is important that you understand this, as it is the context within which we are conducting this negotiation. There are much larger and more dangerous entities than yourself - or, before you, Seven - lurking out there in the broader Multiverse that Helios have been dealing with for far longer than the Local Network has existed. If you overplay your hand, you force mine. Mobilising a genuine threat to our projects - to our worlds - would be an escalation. Our response to such an escalation - I promise you - would not be one which your powers are adequate to counter.”

“The last person who underestimated my powers…who underestimated me…got blinked out of existence with a snap of my fucking fingers. You might think you’d come out ahead, but you don’t actually know. You can’t know. The way I see it, you’re used to winning. Used to being in control. Used to getting what you want in the end. Not me. My life has been one long losing battle, even before all this. But for the first time, I have something to live for. Something to fight for. So you can have as much speculative certainty about how a hypothetical fight between us would end as you like, but - I promise you - you are not fucking prepared for what’s going to happen if you try to take it from me.” Kade finished quietly, maintaining eye contact with her Alter. On the edge of her hyper-focussed vision, she saw a questioning smile forming on Cee’s face.

“Can we, at minimum, agree that it is a scenario that neither of us want?” Cee asked. Kade just nodded. “Are you familiar with the term ‘mutually assured destruction’?”

“Who the fuck isn’t?”

“Good. As a jumping off point for future co-existence, deterrence can be a workable foundation.”

“Fuck you.”

“Kadence. As I have made clear, the Local Network is a line in the sand. That is our Rubicon.”

“Then…” Kade paused, considering. She took a deep breath and a step back from Cee, closing her eyes and raising her hand to squeeze the bridge of her nose. “I want you off of our worlds. I will leave the Local Network standing on the condition that Helios leaves it.”

“We have research interests.”

“Fuck your research interests.”

“We could help you.”

“Fuck your help.”

“Kadence. If there is an understanding to be had, access will need to be part of that understanding. In exchange for nothing more than data: information. Technology. Resources. We could provide these. And I will remind you again: if you overplay your hand, you force mine. I encourage you to be…receptive.” Cee warned her. Kade grimaced, sighing.

“Any Alters you’re experimenting on, you turn over to us. If you’ve done anything to them, including but not limited to drilling metal into their fucking skulls,” Kade paused pointedly before continuing: “You’re going to fix that. The only reason Helios enters the Network is for data collection, and only with our agreement. Also, Alters supervise all data collection.”

“Those terms are acceptable.”

“And I want Damien as our liaison.” Kade added. Cee’s eyes narrowed.

“Whatever for? Based on the confrontation outside, I would have expected you to never want to deal with him again.”

“I don’t. But I’d rather deal with someone I know I’ll never be able to trust than someone constantly trying to convince me that maybe I can when I know I shouldn’t.” Cee nodded with an arch little half-smile.

“Perhaps we are more similar than I gave you credit for.”

“Ugh.” Kade’s face scrunched up into a disgusted scowl. She rolled her eyes and continued: “I need to talk to my friends. I’m not finalising a deal without a quorum.”

“Acceptable. You will find them in the lobby of the Helios Foundation on Local Network World ninety-eight.”

“And exactly why the fuck are they there?” Kade hissed.

“They came to us. I believe they were attempting to assist you. They are unharmed.”

“Olivia.” Kade shook her head, smiling. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that ninety-eight is her world?”

“Correct.”

“Whatever.”

“Come now, Kadence. You got what you wanted. There is no reason we should not part civilly.”

“What I wanted…” Kade repeated back, shaking her head. She ran her tongue along the ridge of her top lip pensively, wincing as it slid over several tiny abrasions. “Y’know what I really want, Cee? I want to deal with my own bullshit without some massive, over-arching threat over my head. Whether it’s some nihilistic misanthrope version of me, hell-bent on creating chaos and getting revenge on the people who she thinks have wronged her, or this faceless monolith casting a shadow over my fucking city - my fucking life - wanting to stuff me and mine into boxes that fit their agenda and use us to facilitate their aims. I don’t have the spoons for this shit, frankly, and I would very much like it to stop. I’ve got enough problems. Practical problems. I have laser appointments, and blood tests, and therapy, and holding down a job, and finding community, and working out how I want to dress, and maybe trying to find someone who wants to date me, and dealing with the complications inherent to the slow collapse of late-stage capitalism, and…I don’t know, fucking crying a lot, probably? In short…all I want - all anyone like me wants, I feel - is for people like you to get your boots off of our fucking necks long enough so we can breathe. And, frankly, you of all people should know better. You should be better. You’re one of us. You’re on the wrong fucking side of this thing, Cee. So truly, and with all the sincerity in the world? Fuck you. I’ll be back when I’ve talked to my friends, one way or the other.”

Kade blinked through a barren little Otherwhere and then into the lobby of Olivia’s worlds’ Helios Foundation. She glanced back towards the doors, chuckling to herself: perfectly intact, not crumpled, ripped off their hinges, or blown back into the lobby. She looked around. Knelt in the centre of the floor, knees on black, glassy tile, were the other Alters. Their hands were raised up behind their heads. Around them, six more generic security guys with the same outfits and buzzcuts as the ones who had been with Damien, guns in their hands and trained on Kade’s friends. With them, yet another version of herself, wearing a long black and gold paisley skirt and a black silk blouse. Baring her teeth with a violent snarl, Kade raised a hand, lifting the security detail into the air and sending them flying across the lobby.

“Get up. You’re safe, now.” She instructed. As the Alters got to their feet, running over to her, Kade kept her eyes on the new, brightly smiling version of her.

“Hi, I’m Lacey!” She grinned. “You must be Kadence with a K.”

“Don’t…do that. Just call me Kade, okay?”

“Sure thing! I just heard from Cee, and it sounds like we’re all friends, now?”

“Oh, that might be overstating it a little.” Kade frowned. “Give me a few minutes.”

“Sure!” Lacey beamed, pointing back towards the elevators. “Level seven, when you’re ready. I’ll get the conference room set up. Cee and I will meet you all there.”

“Whatever.” Kade didn’t take her eyes off of Lacey as she walked away, kitten-heels clicking on the tiles from beneath her long skirt. “These fucking people…” She sighed, shaking her head.