Toyah

A Mystic Missouri story.

1.1

In the midst of a smashed-flat neighborhood, surrounded the splintered and shattered homes, Toyah hunted for treasure. The little blonde-haired girl in a dirt-brown tunic slowly picked her way down the street. As she shuffled, slid, and skipped around the twisted wrecks of cars and trucks, climbed and jumped over fallen trees, she would occasionally pause and peer at her surroundings. On her shoulder, a small plastic and tin owl likewise swiveled its head, the tiny red beads set in its wide eyes sparking. Despite several stops, neither seemed to find anything interesting. Not until they were three blocks deep into the street did the owl make a fluttering of its plastic wings. The limited movement allowed by the simple hinge was useless for any sort of flight, even if it had been made from the right materials, but its rapid clicking alerted the girl that it had seen something. When she looked at it, the owl turned its tin head so that it’s beak pointed directly at a house three more plots down. The girl hurried over, scrambling over a crumbled brick half-wall, its metal grating lying in a tangled mess among the debris of the neighboring home.

Toyah appraised the building as she approached. Stopping a few feet from where several jagged spears of snapped frame stuck out from a heavy slab of concrete, it was clear there would be no climbing inside herself. She crouched down, noting that the slab and wooden frame slats hung over the ground by about half a foot, cloaking in shadow a broken, ground-level window that no doubt led into the basement. Toyah stood back up and opened the leather satchel she’d been lugging with her. Her fingers touched an object of polished wood, and she pulled out a wooden doll painted like a nutcracker soldier.

Toyah set the little wooden soldier down upon the grass. The red and blue and tan facsimile of a man wobbled for a moment, then righted itself. Its tiny, simple hinges squeaked a bit from long disuse. The young girl pointed forward, towards the massive pile of destroyed wood, brick, and metal. Taking a moment to make sure it had oriented itself, the little toy soldier waddled forward. Its legs were jointed only at the hips, forcing it to walk in a stilted shuffle, especially over the grass. Toyah frowned. This wouldn’t do at all. She picked it back up and inspected the legs. The whole toy was about eight inches tall, as long as her forearm, and the legs were wooden posts twice as thick as her finger. She concentrated for a moment, and the toy vibrated for a few seconds. Then, it went “limp.” The stiff material couldn’t sag, as such, but it’s limbs, which had been resolutely held forward, now dangled towards the ground, as the head turned slightly to the side as if at rest.

Toyah sat down on the grass and reached into the leather satchel, pulling out a knife and some nails. She took a few moments to eyeball the measurements, and then about halfway down the legs of the wooden soldier, she started cutting. After a few minutes work, leaving a mess of shavings on her dirty brown tunic, she had cut deep enough into the legs that she could cleanly snap them in half. Once done, she set to work driving a slim set of nails into the stumps, using butt of the knife handle to push them in sideways, then bend the head of the nail down while it was only half into the wood.

With that done, she pulled out some pre-cut bits of pipe cleaner, and tied the lower parts of the leg back onto the stumps, the bent nails serving as crude hooks. Looking the toy over, Toyah thought for a moment, shrugged, then concentrated once more. The toy vibrated for a moment, and the limbs snapped upwards again. Setting it back down, the toy wobbled almost drunkenly on its newly hinged legs, before managing to find some kind of balance. Then, Toyah pointed to the wreckage again, and the little wooden soldier floppily walked towards it. After a few moments of probing, it found an opening, a shattered basement window, and slipped inside, disappearing into the rubble.

Now it was time to wait. Toyah sighed, putting one hand on her knee, and her chin on her fist, while she busied her other hand with putting her tools back in her bag. Scouting missions were easy work enough, but they sure could be boring. She yawned and swept her mop of blond hair out of her eyes.

A moment later, something planted itself on her head. A slim but strong hand playfully tussled her hair, making the shaggy blond mane even more of a mess. Toyah pouted and look up from her seat on the ground to see Django, smiling down at her. The young man still had a boyish look to his face, his slim figure and simple grey shirt and black slacks, topped with a bright red scarf not doing him any favors. Despite looking sixteen, he was closer to twenty-six. Or so he claimed. Toyah had her doubts, but being only twelve, she wasn’t exactly well versed in guessing ages. Anyone taller than her felt like an adult, and she was short enough that even kids her age could loom over her.

“Any luck?” said Django, still smiling pleasantly.

“Eh,” she muttered. “Clocker thought maybe we had something, but Solly hasn’t come back yet.”

Django glanced over to the plastic and tin owl resting on Toyah’s shoulder. It looked up at him and clicked its little beak, the closest it could get to making some kind of chirp. It’s comically wide eye design sparked with red from the tiny plastic dots in their center. “Clocker” had been an invaluable asset to their little treasure hunting group, but the bird always unnerved him when he looked it in the “eyes.” Django looked away from its gaze, trying not to think of what his young partner had done to make the little scouting golem.

A thought occurred to him. “So who’s Solly?”

“Solly the Soldier,” said Toyah.

Django’s brow furrowed. “That nutcracker looking thing? Didn’t he break?”

Toyah shrugged. “I made another. Happened to find a similar model in that mall.”

“I see,” he said. “So what did you give him?”

“Super strength.”

“Ah.”

“He needs it to shift through the rubble and climb back out again.”

“Of course.” The two stood there for a time, then Django turned. “Alright, I’m going to check on the others. Call out if you…”

There was a loud clunk, and Django turned. A toy soldier that did indeed look almost like a nutcracker had landed on the ground in front of a low window, having bounced off a plank hanging over the opening. The soldier righted itself, wobbled a bit, then crawled forward through the grass. Behind it, it was dragging a silver chain necklace, with a shiny black-gold orb. “Solly” presented the jewelry to Toyah, who smiled. She grasped it and immediately slipped it on, letting the marbel-sized orb plop down on her chest. It stood out starkly against the earthy brown of her tunic. She smiled up at Django. “What do you think?”

He smiled slightly. “I think you should resist your urge to play dress up until we know what it does.”

Toyah sighed, stood, and snatched up the toy soldier, settling on her other shoulder. The little wooden man tried to cling to its master for dear life, but its hands were just rounded wooden balls. It had to straddle the girl’s shoulder, with its head resting against her face. As she pulled the necklace loose, it clicked against Solly’s wooden face, and Clocker’s plastic wing. As it went, it got snagged in a lock of her messy hair, and she yelped.

Django sighed and assisted her in untangling it. In so doing, it slipped from both of them, and struck the ground. There was a small glint, and a flash of light, followed by a roar of thunder as a lightning bolt arced from the bauble to struck the side of the destroyed house not five feet away. Shrapnel burst everywhere, and Django whipped Toyah behind him, even as a series of round metal shields popped into being behind him, forming a wall of buckler that deflected the wood and brick and metal to the side.

Django let out a sigh of relief, letting the shields vanish when the shower of debris was over. Toyah blinked with a deer-in-headlights look on her face. The young man carefully reached down and delicately plucked the necklace up by its chain, holding it out in front of him as he pulled a small metal box out from his own satchel. The inside was already padded with cloth, and he closed the trinket up inside, letting the chain coil around the black-gold orb for added padding. Closing the box and packing it safely in a side pocket of the satchel, he clapped Toyah on the shoulder.

Toyah snapped out of it, and collected her two animated toys from the ground, where Solly was already helping Clocker get to its feet. She carried them in her arms this time, cradling them like two small babies. She hung her head. “S-sorry…” she said.

Django let out another small sigh. “One of these days, this job is going to kill us. And it’ll be from something really stupid like that.”

“I know,” she said. She glanced up and smirked. “You almost sliced my face off with that flying sword we found last week, remember?”

“Yes,” said Django, smiling a bit. “I’m not mad. I’m saying we’re all idiots to be doing this.”

“So go get a real job,” she said.

“Pfff. I’d rather get lightning bolted.”

The two chuckled and left the littered yard of the ruined house to pick their way through the destroyed neighborhood, and reunite with their group. The whole town had been smashed flat by a raid of monsters. Such a sight wasn’t uncommon this close to the border, and most such precarious locations had long been evacuated. Such places would have been total write offs, were it not for the proliferation of the special artifacts that were often left behind as a result.

1.2

Carla already had the airboat summoned, and was hefting a large cloth sack onto the space between the back of the chair and the large fan. The clunky, rusty looking device seemed just about the ricketiest thing imaginable, but despite this, it had whethered considerably more damage than its appearance would indicate. Unfortunately, it was only a one-seater, but its dune-buggy like open frame made plenty of good handholds, while hangers-on could stand on the two wide “skates” that the vehicle cruised along on. By rights, the vehicle shouldn’t have been able to navigate the debris-ladden, roads of the town, but once activated, the skates hovered several inches off the ground. In this way, Toyah and Django could stand on them without every little bump in the road knocking them off.

“Find anything good?” said Carla, looking bored and tired. The twenty-one year old was dressed in rugged work clothes, cargo pants and a tan denim jacket, both streaked with dirt and grit, her long black hair tied into a tail and tucked into the jacket.

“No,” said Django. “Just the usual junk.”

“Thought I saw a flash from over the hill,” she said. “Any trouble?”

Django smiled. “Nope. Just testing our find.” He winked at Toyah, who looked away, suddenly interested in practicing her nonchalant face.

Carla scowled as she hopped into her airboat. “We’ll you’re not dead, so I assume it went well.”

Neither felt the need to elaborate as they mounted the sides of the airboat, Toyah tucking Solly and Clocker back into her satchel. The fan kicked on with a loud whirring that was just below the need to cover ones ears, but was still too loud to make decent conversation. The three pulled out a pair of googles from each of their bags, fastened them on, and Carla shifted the boat forward. Even over rough terrain, the vehicle could manage a good fifty miles an hour, but with her two passengers, she didn’t dare go over ten until they could hit open road.

At the edge of town, the rest of the crew was waiting for them, six people in total already loaded up in their truck. Carla slowed down just enough to wave at the driver, then kept going, knowing they’d catch up soon enough. She hit a good cruising speed once they reached the highway, and sped back to their hometown. Sure enough, the truck caught up and passed them, honking as it went. Carla rolled her eyes. Dango, his red scarf whipping around behind him, yet somehow now getting caught in the fan, smiled into the breeze, hanging off slightly by one arm, while Toyah clung tightly with all four limbs. She still looked ahead, her hair getting considerably more than a little mussed, but she enjoyed the rush, despite her white-knuckle grip. Carla had worked with them long enough to know neither would fall off as long as she didn’t try to pull any crazy stunts.

Traffic rarely ever went this far north, and almost none ever headed south, so the road was quite clear, taking them only ten minutes to reach the next town. Like many of the surviving towns within twenty miles of the border, a large wall had been constructed from material shipped in from the ruins of less fortunate settlements. The barrier was a north-facing hodge-podge curve of brick, concrete, and logs, but it was enough to block any initial threats that might surge down from the border. It did mean, however, that access was cut off, forcing Carla to drive lengthwise around the wall before she could get an entry point. Once they finally cleared the edges, she was able to glide into the town proper.

There wasn’t much to see. Princeton had boasted a population of 1,200 before the world went away, and the families had long cleared out when the Mist Wall spewed its mutant hordes inwards. Now, the town was one of many outposts, still intact, but sparsely utilized around the edges of the land. They were good for little more than look outs to warn against new threats from the Wall, and temporary headquarters for scavenger guilds like their group.

The town of Mercer had had little left for them to scavenge, which was to be expected. In the five years since Mist Wall appeared, most of the border towns had been stripped clean of any immediately useful resources, then the resources that took a more dedicated effort to fish through, and then a third or fourth pass through for anything missed. The only thing such towns were good for any more was the finding of new artifacts. Sometimes, everyday objects might be infused with the same strange energies that gave certain people their special powers. This happened more frequently in the border towns, near the Mist Wall, but more importantly, no one was usually around to find them until subsequent sweeps by the scavengers uncovered them.

Carla pulled up next to the bar and grill that served as the guild’s usual hangout place. Once Toyah and Django had hopped off, Carla let the airboat disintegrate, the vehicle appeared to rapidly evaporate into fading vapor. With practiced ease, she dropped down to hit the ground with both feet, spinning to snatch her bag out of the air before it hit the ground. Hefting her sack over her shoulder, she led the way for the trio into the bar.

The other guys were already here, already knocking back drinks. Toyah went to the far end of the bar, nearest the television, and jumped up onto the stool, already tuning out the rest of the group. A movie was playing, one of the many old ones from before the world went away, and while the sound was off, she followed along with the subtitles.

Carla sat down with the other guys, all surly biker and trucker types that Django found a little too boisterous, but whom Carla felt right at home with. They already had a glass of beer ready for her, and she jumped right in, gulping down half a mug before clapping one guy on the shoulder, and pitching in on their conversation about “booty.”

Django stepped up to the barkeep, a scrawny, but tall young man in thick glasses whose beady eyes made him look more nervous than he actually was. “Jame,” said Django, setting his own satchel down on a stool. “What’s the word?”

“Suit to your left,” the barman said.

Django glanced to his left, but in the time it took their brief exchange to occur, a man in a grey suit was already sliding himself onto the seat next to him. Django tried not to turn so quick as to reveal his being startled, but before the man had the chance to talk first. The suit was already opening his mouth when Django cut him off, “Whatever you want, the answer’s no.”

“You don’t know what I want,” the man said.

“I know enough to know that what you want is not something I want,” said Django. Jame the barman took this as a queue to check on Toyah, though he kept a wary eye on the two.

“Your gift is telepathy then? Or perhaps precognition?” said the man in the suit, not deterred in the slightest.

“If you know enough to be pestering me, you know what my power is,” he said.

“I suppose if you know enough to know that I know what your power is, then you know what I want, and you know I won’t take no for an answer.”

Django sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m going to give you ten seconds to leave, before I throw you out.”

“I will gladly leave in one, if the girl comes with me,” he said.

“You know the answer to that.”

“And you know my response.”

“And you know I’m not changing my mind. The last three guys you sent weren’t enough of a clue?”

“The fact that I’m number four isn’t clue enough for you?” The man in the suit smiled pleasantly at him, leaning on the bar with one elbow as he faced Django full on. “We want her. She is quite possibly the most valuable superhuman in all of Missouri, the Aevir aside. What’s left of it. She’s an asset we can’t afford to have rummaging through garbage in the border towns.”

“It’s what she’d rather do,” said Django. “You can’t force a kid to be your little soldier.”

“You can’t protect such a valuable asset forever,” said the suit. “Believe it or not, we don’t want to force her, but we—”

“Spare me,” said Django. “I’ve heard the pitch. I know the only reason you don’t just try to kidnap her is because you’re terrified of what she’ll do.”

“If she was that terrifying, the Aevir would have dealt with her already.”

“They’re not the ones who want to force her into being their tool.” Django picked up his bag, and started walking towards Toyah. Although she kept talking with the rest of the crew, Carla was watching them from the corner of her eye. She didn’t take any more swigs of her beer, nursing it on the table.

The man in the suit frowned, watching the young man return to the girl’s side. His gaze lingered on the pair before he shook his head, then stood and left. Carla kept her gaze on him, lingering on the door a few more moments, before slowly taking another sip.

Toyah didn’t look up as Django mussed her hair again. “I can talk to those guys myself, you know,” she said.

“Heard all that, did you?” said Django.

Toyah tapped the back of her neck. A tiny plastic little elf figurine about the size of Django’s thumb crawled out from her mop of hair. The little figure had comically oversized ears compared to the rest of its head. While it had no points of articulation save to swivel its arms and head, it was still able to cling to the girl’s hair. “Eavesdrop” Django recalled. Unlike Clocker, this toy couldn’t sense mystical energy, but its “mundane” senses were radically heightened, and it could feed the information it gathered to anyone it touched. The toy was tiny enough that Toyah could keep it well hidden on her person, and Django was never certain when she was using it.

“I’d rather none of us have to talk to them at all,” he said.

“I can make that happen,” she said.

Django’s jaw tightened a bit, but he forced himself to smile. “I know,” he said. “But it shouldn’t have to come to that.”

“If you say so.” Toyah went back to watching the movie.

Django motioned to Carla, indicating for her to keep an eye on Toyah. She nodded, and he hefted his satchel and left to go to the Trader. Carla would doing her trading with the others, if she had anything she felt was worth it, and he already had the trinket Toyah had found. Between then, he hoped they’d get enough to carry them till their next scavenge.

1.3

A block down from the bar and grill, the Trader had taken over what looked like an old, small department store, plenty of floor space to display some artifacts that people might be interested in, but also plenty of storage space, as well as the dock to offload the things onto trucks. The vast majority of the devices were sent back to the University for study and who knows what uses, buying them in bulk off the Traders.

Django entered, went by the mostly empty shelves, and set his satchel on the floor in front of the counter, where a wiry old man with a comically bushy white beard sat on a stool. Behind him, a middle aged lady with stand out age lines, and very obviously dyed blonde hair was filling out forms next to a pile of random junk and a pile of small, empty cardboard boxes. She pulled out an object from the pile and jotted down a few notes, before cramming both the paper and the object into a box, adding it to a cart where several boxes were already stacked.

The old man moistened his lips and said, “What ya got fer me?”

Django pulled out several trinkets: the lightning necklace Toyah had found, a glowing green monkey wrench, a cracked pair of goggles that had an endless string of numbers blinking across the lenses, and set of four large wooden dice, each about the size of a baseball, which stuck together as though the corners were somehow magnetized. Django had no idea what any of it did, and this was all they could find over the last three days of searching. None of it seemed particularly impressive and the lack of any stand-out artifacts didn’t engender him with much confidence.

Still, when the old man pulled out a modified barcode scanner and ran the laser over them, the thing gave off some positive-sounding beeps. The little LCD screen atop the device glowed red, orange, yellow, or green, from weakest to strongest. While the dice and goggles came up red, and the wrench came up orange, the lightning necklace came up green. Leave it to Toyah to only find one item all day, but have it be the best of the batch.

“Ayup,” muttered the old man, setting the scanner to the side and pulling out a tin box. He opened it up, fished out some bills, and handed Django the standard rate: twenty dollars for red, fifty for orange, and two hundred for green. Better than he’d hoped, and he wasn’t going to argue, even though technically, he should probably have haggled a bit. If one actually knew what the objects did, depending on their usefulness, one could argue a higher value. If you didn’t, then you got the flat rate, and the Traders would figure it out on their own, to haggle with a customer or when selling to the University.

Django wasn’t exactly the best tester, and of all the gifts Toyah had at her disposal, she didn’t have a toy that could ascertain the functions of artifacts. Of course, it wouldn’t be hard for her to acquire such a gift, if a person with one ever tried to make an enemy out of her. Django was grateful that hadn’t happened yet. Just imagine how much more the headhunters would want her if she had that in her repertoire.

Django left the Traders and started walking down the street back towards the bar. Like most of the town, the shops between were boarded up and empty, and there was no traffic. Other than a few key buildings, not enough people were around to sustain any business.

Ergo, Django’s hackles immediately went up when a black, unmarked van came around the corner and started barreling towards him. In a blink, several small shields, popped into existence before him, making a rounded honeycomb of a wall, while similar shield appeared on each forearm, the sides of his calves, his back and chest, and one atop his head like a wide-brimmed hat. He shifted into a defensive stance and the van screeched to a halt mere inches from the wall he’d put forth.

Several men in suits burst from the vehicle, and Django was already in motion, kicking and punching the back of the shields to send them flying like discs towards encroaching group. Each shield was made of a dull, grey metal, about eighteen inches around, with a bulge in the center, and four lines of rivets radiating from the center, before joining the raised edge of the disk. While thin and light, the metal was fantastically durable, harder than any other metal he’d found, despite feeling like cheap aluminum. As such, the shields made a perfect defense for a more agile fighter like himself, as well as a great ranged weapon.

The men in suits, six in total, were knocked aside as the hard shields smacked into them. Django fired the shields with greater momentum than throwing them just by touching one and willing it, something like half the speed of a bullet, more than enough to break a bone on impact. However, the men were not too put out, it seemed, as despite taking shield hits straight between the eyes and getting knocked on their asses, they were rolling back on their feet a moment later.

Django leaped back several feet in one jump, pushing himself into the space between two of the closed up shops. A skinny guy like him had plenty of space to move, while the men in suits, each tall and broad, could barely fit two of themselves across. Django backed up smoothly with long backward steps as the six men crammed themselves into the space. He noted that each of the men looked identical, white, close cut blond hair, solidly built, though with the blazers, it was difficult to tell just how muscular. They all sported sunglasses and their jaws were set firm, making their expressions unreadable.

They advanced steadily in three pairs, marching towards him. The alleyway was empty, no trash cans or dumpsters to throw in the way, so Django just summoned another wall of shields, making the original one vanish. He’d tested and figured out he could summon a hundred of the things in total, and once he summoned them, they mostly stood in place until he touched them or something hit them hard enough to dislodge them. It was a shame he couldn’t telekinetically control them fully, or he’d be able to hammer the approaching squad of goons before they got any closer. As it was, it took at leas the kinetic force of a fully loaded 18-wheeler slamming into just one of the shields to knock it out of place, and layering the shields like a phalanx wall just magnified their resilience. He heard the men trying to punch their way through the shield wall, to no success.

Django turned to run. The alleyway, thankfully, led to the next street over, and he’d easily be able to dash back to the bar and grill, enter through the back, snatch up Toyah and Carla and have them on the road in a couple minutes. He’d just have to—

—a burst of force sent him slamming into the side of the building to his right, smashing him straight through one of the boarded up windows. Only his quick reflexes enabled him to curl up and summon an extra shield on his hip and shoulder, letting them take the brunt of the impact on the wood planks and broken glass. He fell into the darkened, cob-web strewn building, which might have been a sandwich shop, slamming down onto the edge of long counter. He slipped off the edge, still a little stunned by the impact, and fell to his hands and knees behind it. He hissed as broken glass and splinters cut into his hands.

As he tried to stand up, another blast of force knocked him flat onto the floor, knocking the wind out of him. Dust kicked up from the ground, and his reflexive attempt to suck in a breath just made him choke. Gagging, unbalanced, he wasn’t able to jump away as he heard a great crash of splintering wood and shattering glass. He heard a rush of footsteps as people came to the counter to try and pin him.

Covering his hand to try and filter some of the dust as he struggled to breath, Django waited until he could see the shadows of figures coming over the counter to loom over him, and he fired almost all the shields off his body, sending the six suited men sprawling. He then fired the shield between his chest and the floor, causing the kick back to launch him into the air. His unusually keen agility let him land on his feet, though he still stumbled and had to catch himself on the counter.

He wasn’t fast enough, though, and the six men were already back on their own feet, reaching for him. Django summoned more shields to intercept their reaching hands, but the blast of force slammed down on his back again, and he landed right into the open arms of one of the men. The blond-hair suit immediately squeezed him in a bear hug that forced the breath from him. Already half-starved for oxygen and dizzy from the hits, Django blacked out.

1.4

Toyah, still fascinated by the television, hadn’t really been paying attention to her surroundings. She’d commanded Eavesdrop to go back to “sleep”, and it lay nestled in her hair, like a hidden clip ornament. She knew Django had gone off to sell their stuff. She hoped her find was valuable. She didn’t really know much about the artifacts the found. They didn’t fall under the purview of her gift; she couldn’t drain their special attributes, nor animate them. As such, her interest in these scavenging jobs was in trying to find new toys she could use. It didn’t always have to be toys, exactly, but her power seemed to work best when she could imbue figurines and dolls, something that had a sense of personality and a self-mobilizing shape.

As the movie on the television finished up and went to credits, she idly reached into her bag, and pulled out another figure she’d found while poking around in the wreckage of a playground. Five inches tall, it was a purple, plastic robot thing that she was pretty sure was one of those toys you could bend and fold in certain ways to give it another form. They were always fun, an action figure that was two action figures, and also a little puzzle. She hadn’t figured out what the things other form was yet, partly because it was clearly missing some pieces. The left arm was gone, and the little holes and broken hinge on the back indicated it had some kind of backpack/kibble that had broken off. If she had to guess from the wheels on the legs and the chest piece being some kind of windshield, it probably became a van or truck.

She frowned. Fixing one of these guys wasn’t as easy as modifying a wooden doll. If she was lucky, she’d just find another model of the robot. Still, it at least had two legs, so it could walk around. Maybe she could just glue another arm on.

What gift to give it? Currently, aside from the three she had on her person, she had three dozen of the strange mystical essences which gave people and animals their strange powers. Her own power, something she hadn’t even realized she’d had until…

…until the incident she didn’t want to think about, was the ability to take those essences, remove them from one person, hold onto them, and then transfer them to another. It was purely by accident that she’d discovered she could also give them to objects, and thus animate the object at the same time. A cold, lonely night when, after escaping the…

…the person she didn’t want to think about, she’d clutched her doll while hiding in the wreckage of a house. And then, that strange essence she’d sensed and ripped out of the person when he’d tried to… she felt it leave her and then the doll was suddenly walking.

She didn’t have the doll now, nor did she have that person’s essence. She’d placed it in a brick she’d thrown into a stream. In hindsight, she wondered if that had been the smartest thing. The power had been some kind of stasis field, the ability to freeze a person in place with a glance. The essence wasn’t really a part of the man who’d attacked her any more than, say, the knife he’d carried was, but at the time…

She frowned. The robot, with it’s blank, red, evil-looking eyes would have been a perfect vessel for that power, the way it stared menacingly about. She wondered if it was supposed to be one of the “bad guys” of that old toy line. The stickers that demonstrated its allegiance had long been worn off.

Well, what else could she give the thing? Fire blasts? Sonic screams? The weird elasticity power? She giggled at the thought of the hard plastic toy with it’s precise joints suddenly able to stretch and bend like a rubber band. Maybe—

There was a tap on her shoulder and she almost jumped. Toyah looked up to see Carla standing over her, a hint of beer on her breath. “Hey, uh, the guys and I were gunna head to the Traders, then back to the motel.”

“Okay,” said Toyah. She put the robot toy away and hopped off the bench. “Wait, is Django back?”

Carla frowned. “No, actually, which is a little odd. I can’t imagine he’s haggling with the old guy this much. Or at all. You, uh, think you can find him?”

“Hmm,” said Toyah. She pulled the robot toy back out. She grabbed a napkin from the bar, unfolded it and spread it out across the floor, then set the robot on it, standing it up on one of the corners. She kept a finger on the robot and slid one of the essences inside it. The robot twitched, then swiveled its joints abit, as if getting its balance. It looked up at Toyah, having to lean back on its hip joints, as the head could only swivel back and forth. Toyah crouched down and smiled at it.

“Mapper,” she said, using the common nickname for the essence. “Can you locate my friend for me?”

The robot leaned forward a bit and rocked up and down slightly on its hinges, something like a nod. It turned around and stepped into the center of the napkin. Then, from its feet, black lines radiated outwards, swirling and shooting into a pattern that quickly became obvious as a map.

Toyah didn’t give it much thought, but to Carla’s eyes, it was like some magic-ink version of an old GPS tracker, back when one could still use Google Maps on a smart phone to locate something and guide you to it. Only this particular gift enabled someone to do essentially the same thing just be touching a flat surface.

It was definitely one of the more practically useful of Toyah’s gifts, save for the fact that the map could only track things the user had already encountered previously, and could only outline the space between itself and the target, and only the barest geometric features, such as lines for roads and rivers and squares for buildings. It wasn’t good for scouting.

Both young women were a little surprised to see that Django was apparently five miles outside of town, out in the middle of what was either an empty field or a plot of farmland. “Um… what the heck?” said Toyah. “Are you sure, Mapper?”

The robot swiveled its head all the way around to look at her, and made a motion with its one remaining arm, pointing to the corner of the napkin where a star shape indicated its requested target.

Carla felt a pang of dread. The suit who’d appeared earlier. He’d been, what, the fourth or fifth person to approach them about Toyah? Maybe he wasn’t going to accept no and just walk away.

“Toyah, I’m going to drop you off at the motel,” she said. “Get all your toys, activate a few of them, the invisibility one and that force field guy, and then run for one of the empty buildings and stay there.”

The girl’s eyes widened as she looked up at her. “What? Why?”

“Django might be in trouble,” she said. “I’m going to go take care of it.”

“No shit he’s in trouble,” said Toyah, scowling and snatching up the robot. “Why do you think you’re going alone?”

“Honey, you saw the man looking for you,” she said. “It’s obviously a trap.”

“So we get my toys and we all rush to save him,” said Toyah. She stood and crossed her arms, pouting in a way that she probably thought was a convincing serious face, but would have been adorably funny if the situation were not, in fact, very serious.

Carla chewed her lip. She remembered the last time they’d tried that, when they’d had to fight off a biker gang out to steal their stuff. Toyah hadn’t been able to command them all at once. And then, one of the bikers had managed to shoot her, not even realizing who and what she was.

Toyah continued. “If you leave me, I’ll just follow you.”

Carla sighed. That was a fair point. The crew they were working with was just temporary. She couldn’t ask them to watch after Toyah, much less keep a handle on her if the girl tried to run. Nor could she expect them to suddenly go into a trap and get into a fight with who knows what? The three of them were the only superhumans in the group, the other guys in the crew had no idea what their situation was and didn’t need to be dragged into it.

But of course, bringing Toyah along was no doubt their plan. Whoever “they” were. And if they’d managed to get the drop on Django...

Toyah was already heading out the door, taking the ad hoc napkin map with her. “Come on!” she said, keeping her determined expression.

Carla grunted, grabbed her bag, and followed. When she was on the parking lot, she summoned her airboat, hopping on, and Toyah jumped onto the ski, holding tightly as they took off.

1.5

Right away, the motel had proven a bad idea, and Carla almost smacked herself for not thinking of it. Before entering, she parked the airboat a block away and had Toyah try to “scan” ahead, using Eavesdrop. The little plastic gnome toy used some sort of clairvoyance to see and hear great distances and right through solid objects. Two identical, blond-haired men in suits were standing in wait in the room, hiding in corners, while two more each were hiding in the rooms next to them, ready to burst out in ambush.

In their room, the suitcase full of stuffed animals, action figures, and dolls had been torched, rendering them useless for Toyah’s power anyway. That was, thankfully, the only semi-vital piece of cargo they had in the room, the group having learned it best to keep everything they really needed on them, but lugging a suitcase around everywhere was a bit of a hassle for the small girl. New clothes could be purchased later.

New toys, too, although it would have been handy to have a few more. Right now, Toyah only had five: Solly the soldier, Clocker, Eavesdrop, the broken robot, and a small rubber spider she hadn’t gotten around to doing anything with. It would have to do. It was probably for the best. Toyah could command five little soldiers better than several dozen.

Carla had Toyah climb up on her lap and hang one tight, letting her reach top speed as she turned and drove out of town, following the napkin map. Twisting and winding down the country roads, Carla thought it unfortunate that her vehicle was as loud as it was. But then, as they neared their destination, they found themselves in completely open country, long stretches of farm plots, with a new crop just starting to come in. There was no place to approach from stealthily; even if they’d used Toyah’s invisibility gift, the noise and the dust cloud kicked up by the airboat’s fan would give them away.

They stopped a mile from their destination. Down the road, they could the speck of a black van pulled to the side in front of a field of freshly emerging corn shoots. According to Eavesdrop, Django was unconscious and tied to a folding chair in the middle of the field. Carla could vaguely make him out, surrounded by several figures.

“They know we’re here,” said Toyah.

“Great,” she said. “What have you got to work with?”

Toyah pulled Solly, Clocker, the robot, and the rubber spider out of her bag. She hugged them against her and concentrated, pulling away the essences she’d imbued into them before, as well as from Eavesdrop, who remained nestled in her hair. She sifted through her options, and settled on the five most combat effective she could think of.

Clocker was suddenly surrounded in a grey cloud that rumbled softly. It lifted into the sky and shot towards the field, electricity crackling off it. Carla hadn’t seen that power before, but could guess it’s gift, the ability to turn into a living storm cloud.

The robot’s eyes began to glow red. The nutcracker soldier Solly leaped out of her arms and landed on the handles of the airboat, crouched and ready to pounce, his hands glowing with orange energy. The spider likewise bounced up and landed on the frame of the airboat, its legs now shining like needle points, drops of green liquid seeping from the tips. Carla remembered that last power as some kind of poison attack. Finally, there was a flash of light from beneath Toyah’s hair, and a translucent blue field enveloped the airboat; she’d given Eavesdrop the force field power.

Carla pulled a pistol from her bag, an old Glock-17. Toyah had occasionally offered to swap out her powers for something more directly combat effective than the airboat, but she’d always turned her down. Maybe it was dumb her, but for as useful as the girls ability was, the idea of having her gift torn away, even if something else replaced it, gave her an automatic sense of revulsion. She’d seen the effect Toyah’s power had on people, the way their eyes widened and they gasped, as though the girl had just ripped out an internal organ. She’d asked Django once what it felt like. He’d just looked sick for a moment, and hadn’t told her, shuddering.

Carla wondered what it was like for the toys, if they actually felt anything when the girl casually brought them to life, then pulled that spark of being back out like switching disks in a DVD player.

“Well, are we doing this?” said Toyah, looking up at her.

Carla snapped herself out of her pondering. “Yeah,” she said, checking the gun to make sure it was fully loaded. “Yeah, let’s go.”

She shot forward, sending the airboat skimming over the field.

1.6

Django could hear the approach of Carla’s airboat. He groaned and blinked awake, then stiffened as he felt the sharp edge of a knife press against his throat. He very slowly turned his head and rolled his eyes up to see a tattooed woman with ratty looking dreadlocks looking ahead of them, holding a large combat knife to him. Django opened his mouth to speak, when she cut him off without looking at him. “Move and I slit your throat. You pop even one shield up, and I slit your throat. You say anything, and I slit your throat.”

Django opted to risk that she didn’t entirely mean literally, and slowly shifted his gaze forward, turning his head back. He didn’t test her by nodding or saying he understood. His head hurt and his vision seemed a bit blurry, forcing him to blink and adjust his eyes to the afternoon sun.

When his vision focused, his gaze widened slightly as he saw the six men in suits rushing forward to meet his partners. Carla and Toyah were sitting in the airboat, which was surrounded in the bubble of one of Toyah’s shield powers. It was a pity Toyah’s gift didn’t allow her to combine essences; only one gift per vessel, apparently. Django could have really used some kind of teleport or intangibility power at the moment.

The six men formed a tight wall a dozen feet from where Django was bound up, and slammed into the force field, bringing the airboat to a dead stop as it banged off the inner edge of the halted field. The six pressed inward, and the field rippled and warped, threatening to buckle under their combined super strength. But then, there was a crack of thunder, and several bolts of lightning shot down from the sky, blasting the six men. Two of them staggered back, having taken the brunt of the blast, while the rest kept fighting against the shield.

Django glanced up to see a small storm cloud flitting about, electricity crackling to fire off another bolt. However, a rush of air tussled Django’s hair, and the storm cloud was knocked aside by an invisible burst of force. The cloud was disbursed briefly, revealing the tin and plastic owl Clocker tumbling through the air, before righting itself, the cloud starting to reform. Another two quick bursts of force knocked it back again, and then down into the ground, where it smashed into the dirt.

Apparently his dreadlocked captive was the one with the force-blast power. Django debated if he could get a shield up to block her, but the knife was already digging slightly into his neck. Any disturbance, anything that made her flinch would cause her to slice the blade along his neck. He briefly thought it wasn’t a shame he couldn’t manifest the shields inside solid objects; he wouldn’t have been against severing her arm at the moment.

His gaze flicked back to the others as the four men still fighting the shield all stumbled back. One was getting his face burned off by a powerful crimson laser, projected by a toy robot.

A second was grabbing his throat and choking, hitting the ground and writhing just a few feet from Django; he could see the glints of silver needless attached to a black form wriggling into the man’s mouth. The man was trying to crush the little creature by chewing it, but it didn’t seem to be effected.

A third man was getting punched in various points of his body, a small explosion occurring with every punch. Django could see the nutcracker soldier, its round wooden “fists” flaming with orange energy, leaping up and striking the man multiple times, each punch a small detonation that sent the man reeling.

The fourth staggered back as Carla unloaded half a clip from her gun into his face and chest. The man grunted and flailed, falling over, but Django noted that the bullets only left small bruises on his skin.

“Let my friend go!” shouted Toyah, standing between the skates of the airboat, hands on hips, and glaring at the woman holding Django hostage. She really was too cute to be trying to look that serious, and Django couldn’t help but smile slightly. No one would take her seriously if they didn’t know better. His kidnappers had no doubt been informed of her power, but surely, the sight of her would let them underestimate her a bit.

“Kid, there are two ways this is going to go down,” said the dreadlocked woman, still holding the knife to Django’s throat. “You come with us, or all of you die.”

Carla, still sitting on her airboat, scoffed. “Did the University seriously hire a fucking hit squad?”

“Come with us or you all die,” the woman repeated.

Four of the six men struggled up from the ground. The man with the lasered off face was still, as was the one who’d choked on the creature. Django could see it was some kind of spider crawling back out of the choked’ man’s mouth, and it immediately leaped onto the still-smoking form of one of the men who’d been struck by lightning. It went right for his mouth as well, causing the still-stunned man to panic and try to stop it. Too, late, though, it went right into his screaming mouth, stabbing his tongue with its needle-like legs, no doubt injecting some kind of poison.

The man who’d had his face lasered off gave a death rattle, and the robot turned its deadly vision into the second man who’d been lightning bolted. That man didn’t even have time to scream before the flesh was slowly cooked off his skull. The man who Carla had shot found himself getting another full clip from the gun, while the sixth man was still getting the shit kicked out of him by the nucracker’s explosive punches. Django couldn’t turn his head to look, but he kept hearing the little explosions, cries of pain, and grunts of frustration. Even if the nutcracker wasn’t doing much damage, he was driving the man further and further away.

Toyah was unmoving, staring down the dreadlocked woman, heedless of the death and pain she was visiting on grown men that could have easily snapped her in half if they’d gotten their hands on her. Carla was making an obvious point to not look at the men once they were down, keeping closer watch on the one man she was keeping at bay with her gun. In only a few seconds, as he tried to roll to his feet, he found himself getting jumped by the spider, the robot’s lasers cutting into his legs to keep him from running.

Django half-expected to see more lightning, but a glance back to where the owl had been blasted showed it was still half-buried, only faintly wisping steam. Apparently the impact or the force blast had been enough to damage it into immobility.

There was another sudden explosion, much louder then before, and Django heard the man let out a choked, ragged cry. The nutcracker’s head flew into view, thunking on the ground at Toyah’s feet, but the sound of a body slumping into the dirt could also be heard. Django could only guess that the man had finally caught the soldier toy and had tried to break or, or it had activated its power once more, causing a self-detonation strong enough to kill the man.

Carla pulled up her gun and looked the ground, putting a hand to her mouth as she saw Toyah’s toys slaughter the men. Toyah just kept staring at the dreadlocked woman. Even with two of her toys out of commission, the three still functioning were more than lethal enough to deal with the woman. It was at this point Toyah’s too-cute-for-anger face took on a whole level of creepiness that most of their previous attackers had immediately been cowed by.

People tended to forget the monsters that children could be, especially in a world as dangerous as this. Django wasn’t surprised, but was still disappointed, to see Toyah didn’t so much as flinch at the gore surrounding her. Then again, this was hardly the worst she’d inflicted.

Carla managed to compose herself and aimed her gun at dreadlock’s head. The spider and robot came to Toyah’s side, ready to attack.

Dreadlock, to Django’s surprise, simply repeated, “Come with us or all of you die.” There was a bizarrely flat quality to her voice.

“You don’t seem to understand the position you’re in, bitch,” said Carla.

The knife pressed more firmly against Django’s throat. He felt a trickle of blood escape his flesh and run down his neck, sliding down his chest to stain his shirt.

“Go ahead,” said Carla with a smirk. “She’ll just bring him back to life.”

Toyah finally flinched at that. She glanced back at Carla and said, “I don’t have that power!”

Carla blinked in surprise and looked furious for a moment. “She didn’t know that, idiot!”

“Oh!” said Toyah. She turned back to dreadlocks. “Y-yeah! Go ahead, I can totally fix him after! But you won’t have anything to shield you!” Carla sighed. Toyah really was just a kid, in the end.

The knife bit another millimeter deeper. Blood seeped from the wound, and Django dared not swallow, lest it force the knife deeper. “Come with us or all of you die,” dreadlocks repeated.

Carla and Toyah faltered. “W-wait—” said Toyah. “Okay, just, calm down. I’ll go with you, just let him go. Please!”

“Deactivate your shield and your toys,” said dreadlocks flatly. “Lie flat on the ground. You, with the hovercraft, deactivate your vehicle, toss aside your firearm, and back away.”

Carla frowned as Toyah complied, ordering Eavesdrop to lower the shield. She then touched the spider and robot, and then fell over, the effects of their powers fading. She likewise set Eavesdrop down on the ground, face down. With a grunt of frustration, Carla let the airboat vanish, dropping to her feet. She set the pistol on the dirt and took twenty steps backwards.

“Lie flat on the ground, face down,” said dreadlocks. “Both of you.” The two hesitated, but did as they were told.

Django tried to think of something he could do. He could try to cover Toyah and Carla in shields, but if he died, they’d just vanish, and they’d be as exposed as before. The best he could try to do was summon a shield between dreadlock’s arm and his body, but the knife was already cutting into him. He couldn’t tell what angle would just knock the blade away and not rip his throat open further in the process.

Suddenly, a woman in a white pants suit flickered into being, right next to Toyah. Tall, blonde, and imposing, she gave Django and his captor a glance over, then kneeled down next to Toyah, putting a hand on the girl’s back.

“Give us any trouble at all, and we will kill them,” the woman said, her voice surprisingly deep, but just as robotic as the other. “Do you understand, little girl?”

“Touch either of them again and I will fucking murder all of you,” Toyah said bitterly.

“We know,” said the woman.

“Fine,” said Toyah. “Just let them go. Please.” She craned her neck to look up at Django.

The woman in the suit looked to the dreadlock woman and nodded.

“Do not attempt to interfere,” said his captor and she pulled away the knife, taking a few steps back. Django hissed as the cut, not too much worse yet than a deep paper cut, stung sharply, blood still seeping free.

“I understand,” said Django threw grit teeth. “Toyah. Be good.”

“I will,” the girl whispered.

The woman in white started to flicker, and the effect spread over Toyah has well. Then, suddenly, it stopped, and the tall woman let out a choked gasp. She fell back on her ass, staining her white suit with mud. “What…?”

“You supid bitch,” muttered Toyah.

Dreadlocks was already stepping towards Django, knife spearing towards his throat. But in that moment, the purple robot flipped itself upwards and unleashed its laser beam, cutting into her. Twisted his head to see the shot had burned a whole through the woman’s chest. She looked wide-eyed, stunned, and didn’t have the breath to gasp as her eyes rolled up, and she fell over dead.

Toyah stood up from the ground, brushing herself off and glared at white suited woman. “Touching me lets me take from you,” she said. She pointed her finger and the robot turned. Obviously, she hadn’t deactivated it, just made it play dead.

“Wait!” said Carla, also getting to her feet. But Toyah wouldn’t hear it. The robot vaporized the woman’s head with another blast.

Django winced at the sight and Carla looked away. The two traded a glance, then looked back at Toyah. The girl’s face was hardened, grim. No matter how naturally cute she was, her expression made both of them shudder.

The moment passed and Toyah relaxed, suddenly looking tired. She picked up the robot, the plastic gnome Eavsdrop, and the spider, putting the former two in her satchel, and putting the gnome back in her hair. She went to collect the remains of the nutcracker and the owl, while Carla went up to Django, fetching her gun in the process.

Carla picked up the dreadlocked woman’s knife and used it to cut the ropes Django was tied with. The two locked eyes for a moment, as if in silent debate, before looking back at Toyah. The girl was ignoring them, concentrating as she drew the gifts from her two broken toys, then left the pieces lying where they were. She could always get new ones.

Carla grabbed a handkerchief from her sack and gave it to Django to hold against his neck. As Toyah sat down on the dirt, facing away from them, Carla resummoned the airboat. Django, however, began patting down the white suited woman, trying not to look too closely at the burn stump where her head used to be.

“What are you doing?” said Carla. “We need to go.”

“The University has always tried to buy us off,” said Django. “Why did they send a hit squad? I want to know who these people are really working for.” He checked the woman’s pockets, but found nothing, not even a wallet. He cursed, then looked back, and saw the van at the edge of the field. “Let’s go check that.”

“There were more of those strong man thugs back in town,” said Carla, hopping onto the airboat. “We have to go, now, before they send more of them after us.”

“We can steal the van and search it while we drive,” said Django, grabbing onto the side of the airboat. “It’ll be faster than using this thing. Toyah, come on.”

The girl, keeping her head down, forced herself to her feet, and shuffled to the boat.

“They might be able to track the van,” Carla countered, ignoring the slight against her vehicle.

“Then we can drive it for a couple miles, then ditch it,” he said. He looked over the vehicle to see Toyah dragging her feet. “Toyah, come on!” he shouted.

The girl flinched, and they could both tell, even from this angle, that her face was scrunched up, about to start bawling. Carla said nothing, her voice caught in her throat, but Django took a breath and calmed himself. “I’m sorry, Toyah. But please, hurry and grab on. We need to get moving.”

The girl gave a little hiccup as she fought back her tears, but nodded, and walked quickly to the air boat, holding on tightly, and tucking her head down so the two could see her face. Carla started up the fan, and the three shot towards the black van, still sitting on the side of the road.

It took only a minute to reach. Carla, reluctantly, let the airboat dissolve again, and the three hurriedly reached for doors. The van was the type with only windows in the front seats, with a sliding door on the passenger side, and a double door for the back, likewise without windows. Larger curved mirrors on the sides compensated for the lack of rear and side views. It had once probably been a utility van before it was painted a solid black color.

The passenger side was facing them, and Django ran to the drivers side. He was almost surprised when it didn’t open. The three tested all the doors; they were all locked. He groaned, then realizing it would matter if they were open anyway. “For fuck’s sake,” he said. “We didn’t grab the keys.” He looked back to the bodies, now several hundred feet away in the field. They could go back and search the bodies, of course, but that would be even more time stalling.

“I got someone who can pick locks, remember?” said Toyah, sullenly. She pulled out the spider, now looking like a normal rubber bug, and concentrated again. This time, the spider’s legs extended and split, turning into a series of waving threads. She set the spider against the van’s passenger door, where it stuck. It inserted its two front legs into the door lock of the front passenger door, and there were clicking sounds as it figured out the locks configuration.

Django impatiently drummed his fingers on the side of the door, while Carla checked her bag for a fresh clip for her gun. Both were too distracted to react when the side door of the van suddenly flew open and the sound of a gun went off.

1.7

Carla shrieked and Django shouted, coming around the van to see Toyah on the ground, lying still. From the van emerged two more of the blond, black-suited thugs. Both were holding revolvers, one of them smoking. They raised their guns before doing anything else, and Carla jerked back, trying to bring her own gun up too late.

Shields popped into being in front of her forming a wall which easily deflected the bullets of the man on the left. The man on the right had already been turning to shoot Django, but his shoots went wild as a trio of shields slammed edgewise into his face. Django, shields on his limbs, chest, and head, flipped over the van and shot more of them at both of the men, knocking them sprawling. The revolvers were sent flying, and Django knocked them aside. Furiously, he hammered the men with his shields, forming them on his arms, firing them like disks, then making them vanish after impact, and firing another round, machine gunning the two into the dirt, until they were bruised, bleeding messes.

They were still alive, groaning in pain. Django covered them in more shields, creating cocoons of the metal bucklers, pinning them to the ground. He then made one appear right against the men’s face, letting them suffocate.

Django, breath heaving, turned back to see Carla kneeling next to Toyah. She wasn’t crying or saying anything. She simply looked shell shocked. Django stepped up to her and put a hand on her shoulder. He forced himself to look. The man had shot the girl point blank in the temple. Toyah was gone.

Django grit his teeth, body shaking. He whirled and went over to the cocooned men, pulling the buckler off the face of the left most man. He let the one on the right run out of air while the first one choked and spat up bloody spit, sucking in breaths of air.

“Why?” said Django, shaking with anger.

“Too… dangerous…” the thug said, his voice just as strangely robotic as the woman’s had been. “If we… could not… control… then we could… not allow her to… run loose…”

“That’s it?” said Django, aghast. “The University would rather murder her than let anyone else claim her? Then let her just live her life? She wasn’t hurting anybody! The only people she took from were people who attacked her! If you fucking lunatics would have just left her alone, then she’d never be a threat to you!”

“Not… the University…” the man said.

Django blinked but wasn’t too surprised. He hadn’t thought so.

“Then who?”

“Now that… the girl’s dead… you don’t need… to worry about it.”

“Tell me!” shouted Django.

The man just stared at him, impassively. The shield-bearer slammed another buckler onto the suited thug’s face, letting him suffocate like his partner.

Django trudged back to Carla. She’d gotten back to her feet, and was wiping her eyes. “What the fuck do we do now?” she asked. “Are they still coming after us?”

Django let out a long sigh, blinking away building tears. “I don’t think so,” he said. “They were just after her.”

“Damn it,” she said. “Poor fucking kid.” She looked around. They were still in open country, nothing but farmland around. By a stroke of luck, good or bad neither could say, no one had passed through the area yet, not even with the ruckus kicked up by the battle. Probably anyone who caught sight of it had been smart enough to run away as fast as possible.

“I guess we alert the cops?” said Django. “Do they even have a sheriff anywhere near here?”

“What the fuck do we even tell them?” said Carla.

“I don’t know. The truth? We got jumped by a bunch of crazies. Its fucking wild west rules out here.”

“They had connections,” she said. “Suits that nice aren’t worn by random biker gangs. This is going to look like we fucked up a bunch of, what, business prospectors or whatever they call them. And they still have more of those guys back at town, and who knows where else. What the fuck are they anyway, clones?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “The way they were all talking creeped me out. Like they were all robots or something.”

“Then this was something worse,” she said. “If they’ve let us go, then we don’t push it. We burn—” her throat caught, and she had to swallow to clear it. “We burn her body, we skip town, and we don’t come back here.”

The two looked down at the girl, the strange street rat they’d fished out of a broken down train station just under a year ago, who’d helped them survive a fight against a biker gang, and lent her army of powers to helping them eke out a living in the dangerous lands near the Mist Wall. It would have been a stretch to say they’d seen her as surrogate kid or little sister. But she’d had their back time and again, in exchange for them looking out for her, perhaps drawn to stay with the two of them just because they were the first people who hadn’t tried to use her for some grand agenda or power grab. Despite the gap in their ages, despite her youth, they’d come to see her as an equal partner in some ways.

“We can’t just leave it at that,” said Django, wrapping her head in his scarf and gathering up her body. “If we find out who these fuckers are, we get them back.”

Carla hesitated, but finally nodded, her expression hardening. Then she summoned her airboat. Django formed a platform between the front of the skates with his shields, setting Toyah’s body upon it, climbed onto the side of the craft, and they took off, in search for a place to bury her.

Neither mentioned the concern that niggled in the back of both their minds. When a superhuman died, it seemed their powers manifested randomly in someone or something else sometime later. Toyah had held the essences of dozens of superhuman powers. Had they all just vanished into the ether when she died or were they now free to manifest in others? If the latter, how many of them were going to end up in lunatics like the people they’d just fought? If the former, what miraculous powers were now lost to the world that Toyah might not have told them about?

Either way, the two felt the land of Missouri had gotten just that more dangerous.

END