Concrete, darkness, blood, and pain; down in the hole, back again.

  Incalculable weight pins me to the floor by the shredded remains of my right leg and my right arm; both limbs are shattered, broken in more places than I will ever know, meat and bone I cannot shed. Blood blinds my right eye, dyes half the world with crimson flame. Agony brands the socket’s edge, sears a lightning-strike of pain down my right cheek, a flap of flesh so freshly torn, nerves newly severed. A fist of jagged rebar has ripped my face open, sharp fingers now only inches from my neck. Squirm too hard and I will puncture my own throat on spikes of twisted metal.

  Screaming, wailing, howling, not all of it mine. The air reeks of blood and bile and voided bowels, rings with frantic cries and incoherent shouts, the scuff and scrape of bare hands heaving at the rubble. More than just me down here, swallowed by the collapse. Caved-in concrete and squealing steel caught everybody at the far end of the shelter, all the responsible guardians keeping small children away from the reinforced door back to the surface. Women and children in the rear, buried the deepest, meant to be safe.

  We’d heard the fight pass directly overhead. Felt the footsteps of a Dreamer on English soil. Reality wavered and blurred, oil on water in peripheral vision, faces melting like butter under a blowtorch, as Beatrix Ayton’s passage warped the waking world.

  But then she had walked on.

  No, it wasn’t the Dreamer who did this. Return fire made us all collateral damage.

  I am alive, in so much pain that pain ceases to have meaning, sheltered in a narrow, dust-choked, blood-slick abscess beneath the rubble, because the very last thing my parents ever did was save their only daughter.

  My mother’s corpse lies to my right, crushed and tangled in the weight of concrete that took my limbs; a moment earlier she yanked me to my feet and shoved me clear. My father’s corpse is half-atop me, his arched back broken by a steel beam, strength spent to take a blow fated for my skull.

  Back in the shelter, beneath the debris, at the fulcrum of my life.

  A strange dream. One I’ve had before.

  When I was younger, reality was still a fresh wound, this dream came several times a week. In the aftermath came screaming, crying, sobbing, fear of the roof falling in, refusal to endure the slightest weight on my body, insomnia of habit because I didn’t want to dream again. In time I coped; reality never healed, but at least it stopped bleeding. A decade distant, I endure this dream perhaps once every six months, and wake with little need to weep. Pain, fear, grief, panic, they’re all just a bad dream. The girl who felt for real is gone; she died in that shelter, alongside my parents. I am her remains, a scrap they pulled from the rubble, reanimated in her memory.

  I’m turning my head to the right, to look at my mother’s dead face, same as always. Perhaps it’s what I did in reality, or maybe I just don’t want to forget her. Hard to remember what’s real and what’s reconstruction, down here in the thick of the dream. I have seen my mother’s mask of blood so many times — one eye burst, one hand sticking from the rubble, a frozen final gesture as she pushed me clear. I know she did that, that was real, and I never want to forget.

  But my mother isn’t there.

  The dream has changed. First time in ten years.

  A body, wrapped in concrete and steel, but not my mother. A man in a Section Special uniform, face caved in by a fist.

  Twist the other way, look at my father; he should be curled and crumpled and crushed around my left side, but he’s not there either. In my father’s place lies another Section Special officer, another face caved inward by impact, skull blown out, jellied brains drying down his back.

  The two men I killed, made faceless and cold, down here with the rest of the collateral damage.

  Hands haul away chunks of wreckage, digging for the dead. The dream always ends when the rescue effort uncovers me, as they make the sensible choice to amputate my tortured meat, because I might bleed to death if they lift the concrete off too quick. Masked and goggled against dust and blood, voices muffled by rubber and filters, they swarm over the debris. Thick gloves reach in, grab the Section Special officers, corpses coming apart as they’re pulled clear.

  But then the dream diverges further. Footsteps hustle out through the door, vanish up the steps, back to the surface.

  The rescuers leave me buried under the rubble, drowning in my own whimpers, still dreaming. A distant thud and crackle drifts from far away, magical girls fighting and dying, up in the open air, free and unfettered.

  Down here, silence settles. I am trapped and alone. Forever.

  Except.

  Metal footsteps.

  Hard, heavy, unhurried. Descending into the shattered shelter. Click, click, click, sharp against the concrete.

  The metal tread pauses in the shelter doorway. Breath heaves in and out of lungs like bellows, building with every tide. Muscles creak. Joints crack.

  Bite my lips shut, swallow the pain. Whoever or whatever has joined my dream, I would rather die beneath the rubble than have it uncover me. I don’t know why, but I know for certain; this thing will give me a worse end than the one I have already endured. Better a familiar hell than that. Better a death I know.

  Wake up. I have to wake up. Wake up, right now. Wake up, Octavia.

  Footsteps cross the shelter, wade into the debris, kick aside heavy chunks of concrete. Heaving breaths, snorted and hissed, hot with anger. Red light leaks through the cracks in the rubble, shining from a titan clambering closer. I try to squirm away, pinned by broken rebar and my own useless limbs. A whimper escapes my lips. It knows where I am.

  Wake up. Wake up!

  Metal clatters, closing in. Red light deepens, darkens, turns to black, drowning my pocket of shelter.

  It’s right beside me, breathing hard, peering through a narrow gap.

  Close my eyes, pretend it’s not there.

  A hand stretches out, and

  touches the rubble

  with a single

  metallic.

  click

  ~~~~~~~

  I bolt upright, fight the covers, wheeze for breath. Clutch my chest, hold tight to a scream, swallow it whole.

  Cold sweat soaks the sheets, a shiver I can’t shake, blinded by tears.

  “Dream,” I spit. “Just a dream.”

  Don’t recognise where I am — concrete box, prison cell, I&O ward? Panic pushes the swallowed scream back up my throat. I almost lose the fight, abandon all dignity, foul my bedsheets with bile.

  But then I remember.

  Plato Base. On the Moon. Magical girl.

  Panic subsides, but still I make a noise I would never make in front of anybody, not even Willow. Especially Willow. Sag with relief, try not to sob, almost slump back onto the pillow. But the memory of that nightmare keeps me upright long enough to grope for my mobile phone.

  Clock reads 09:16. Morning down in England.

  Can’t risk lounging in bed, not even up here on the moon. That’s a good way to court atrophy and rot. If I don’t get up now, I’ll never get up again, the same way as always, so I pull the bed covers aside and climb to my feet.

  “Ahh! Ah … nnnh!”

  My hips and lower back are stiff and sore. Both my shoulders are bruised and I can’t turn my neck all the way to the left. My reward for hurling myself down the corridors of Dream Control Oxford Headquarters. Guess being a magical girl doesn’t help with that after all.

  Stagger to the sink, splash my face with water, use the mug from last night to wash out my mouth, then drink enough to slake my thirst. There’s a toothbrush by the basin, still in a plastic package. Tearing it free takes more goes than I would like, sleep clinging to me, making me clumsy. Once I have secured a toothbrush I cast around for toothpaste. Stick the whole mess in my mouth, do the best I can.

  Bleary-eyed monster in the mirror. Not much worse than usual.

  I pace the room and brush my teeth. Shaky, weak, fragile, but I can stand straight and raise my chin, no instant need to sit back down. Right shoulder rotates okay, stump not too raw, prosthetic hand smooth and responsive; my thumb and middle finger are still misaligned, but I can compensate. Deep breaths tug at an ache in my core, the echo of Scarlet’s sword; focus on it and the ache throbs harder, tense and tight with remembered pain.

  Wait a moment, take a deep breath, forget about Scarlet Edge.

  Everything seems to be in order.

  “Except that dream,” I mutter, spit toothpaste into the sink, rinse my mouth.

  The woman in the mirror looks the same as always, not at all ‘magical girl’. A good night’s sleep has not granted me sparkles or cat ears or multicoloured hair. I touch my scar. Same as always. Run a nail along the ridges, sensation muted. Same as always.

  Close my eyes. Same as always?

  I’m still there when I open up again, staring back from inside the mirror.

  That dream — was that what Nerys and Grimgrave were talking about? A strange dream to initiate me as a full magical girl? Nothing more than an obvious nightmare. Those two corpses, the two men I killed yesterday, I’ll be dragging them behind me for years, won’t I? If I’m even alive that long. An obvious nightmare, too obvious to mean anything.

  Except that presence toward the end.

  Chills creep up my spine. Skin flashes cold with fresh sweat. Guts clench hard.

  Forget the dream. Raise a wall in my mind. Do not think about the thing clambering over the rubble to get at me. Meaningless. Pointless. Do not pursue that thought. In a Dreamland overlap, on the moon? Could have been anything. It meant nothing. Nothing.

  Besides, I’m not sticking around to find out.

  “Transform,” I say out loud. “Transform.”

  Nothing happens. I picture myself in a magical girl outfit — a dress or a gown, with a hammer or a sword. Red, blue, yellow? I snort, shake my head. Too absurd. I’m wearing pajamas and a robe, is that not magical girl enough?

  “Transform?” I click my fingers, like Grimgrave did. Doesn’t help. “Tch. Okay, whatever, let’s … let’s get out of here, Octavia. We need to get out of here. Still need to get back to Willow.”

  Unbolt the door, open a crack, and I’ve got a repeat visitor. The metal cart from last night, loaded with neatly folded clothing, all freshly washed.

  Another blue plastic note is propped atop the bundle.

  A small challenge, but one well met. Your coat bears a scar, now closed forever. The jumper is holy, and only so much could be done for that condition. The shirt has perished, a replacement serves you. Another has joined, for your comfort. When hunger finds you waiting, do not wait in vain.

  I scoop up the bundle, bolt the door, dump the clothes on the bed.

  My coat and jumper have been repaired, more expertly than I thought possible. The sword-gash in the back of my coat is closed up with fine blue thread, almost invisible to the naked eye unless I turn it to catch the light. My jumper hasn’t fared so well, three entrance wounds in the front matched by three in the back, all sealed shut by similar glossy blue thread, thicker and meatier, with more ground to cover. My shirt has not returned, replaced instead by a plain white t-shirt, which will have to do. The rest of my clothes are spotless, soft, unscented. A pair of thick black tights have been added to the outfit, not originally mine.

  ‘Tissy’ again? I need to thank her, whoever she is. She has saved my favourite coat.

  Dressing is easier than undressing was last night, though my back and hips are sore enough to slow me down and draw complaints from between clenched teeth. Bra, skirt, t-shirt, jumper, both my gloves, and I’m starting to feel human again. Rake my hair into a semblance of normality, no comb or brush in the room. I pause to check the battery level indicator in my forearm; still 100%. Which is, of course, impossible.

  I hesitate with the coat. Not strictly necessary unless I’m stepping outdoors. But I am on the moon, in a Dreamland overlap, surrounded by who-knows-what, so I pull the coat over my shoulders, nice and snug, then tuck my phone and my purse into the inside pocket.

  I pick up the tights and toss them back onto the bed with a sigh; no way I’m dragging those over my prosthetic leg.

  “When hunger finds you waiting, do not wait in vain?” I read the card out loud again. “Tissy, you are a poet.”

  Back to the door, half-expecting to find breakfast waiting for me. But the cart is gone and the corridor is empty. A faint breakfasty scent lingers in the air. Hot tea and toast, perhaps eggs, maybe coffee. I do hope the moon has coffee.

  What else am I going to do — wait here until Nerys and Grimgrave come to fetch me? Absolutely not. I will not be stashed away until needed.

  I step into my shoes, step out into the corridor, and close the door behind me. No exterior lock, but who cares? No possessions in there to steal or snoop, and I’m not planning another night here. Magical girl transformation or not, I’m well enough to walk alone.

  Whatever happens next, I am going home, to find my Willow.

  On my right, the door-lined corridor stretches away, fading into darkness beneath the lunar mountains. A trio of fuzzy grey lumps shuffle off into the shadow. Hopefully just zoogs.

  Only one way to go, a turn to my left, back toward the main room, the Big Room of Plato base.

  Except I stop and stare, because there’s a figure standing at the end of the corridor.

  A skeleton.

  “No,” I say. Reflex. “No.”

  Nine feet of humanoid skeletal structure, naked bones in light grey, held together at the joints with thick hinges, bolts and screws in stainless steel, wires and cables and black electrical tape. Limbs and torso are plated with mismatched pieces of body armour, ceramic slabs, kevlar patches. The hands and feet are coated in black, as if dipped in textured tar — vulcanised rubber. The chest cavity is stuffed with computer parts: a motherboard, processors, storage, a whole mess of LEDs in purple and green. Several small screens are strapped to the front of the ribcage. Cables lead down the limbs and up the armoured spine, gathering in the head. A human skull crammed with hardware, camera lenses for eyes, sensors strapped and stapled to the dome, speakers clustered beneath a wired-shut jawbone.

  For the first second I’m too curious to be afraid. What is this thing for? Can it move? Does it see, or speak?

  Grimgrave’s warning lights up my mind as that first second passes. Does a towering moon-skeleton count as something ‘too much weird’? Should I be running away, or hurling myself back into my bedroom? Bolting the door, cowering under the sheets?

  Nowhere to run but into the shadows of Plato Base. And I’m not scared of a skeleton networking project, not even if it is nine feet tall.

  Or maybe I am a little scared. I hesitate before I raise my prosthetic hand.

  Stare into those twin cameras, hard as glass; do they stare back?

  Make a fist. Open my mouth.

  One of the ribcage-screens lights up, bold and bright, black text on light.

  (￣▽￣)ノ

  A silent moment passes. The emote changes

  (σ'ω')σ

  pointing to my right, down the corridor, toward the Big Room.

  The skeleton steps aside, around the corner, leading the way. Rubberised footsteps vanish into Plato Base, silent on concrete, chased by whispers of moon-wind from beyond the walls.

  I’m left with a closed fist and nothing to swing at, rooted to the spot.

  I unmake the fist, lower my hand, take a deep breath. When did I get so violent? Well, yesterday.

  Am I being lured into an ambush by a giant moon-skeleton? Was that ‘Tissy’, showing me the way to breakfast? Or is this a zoog prank? I glance around, hoping to see a wall of grinning zoogs ready to laugh at me. Even just one or two strays would be nice, lingering in the nearby light. But no, I am absolutely and certainly alone. Behind me lie nothing but shadows. Nowhere to go but back into my bedroom, alone and hungry. Or I could follow a mystery moon-skeleton.

  Hesitate, take a step back. Hesitate again, can’t raise my hand. Use my eyes instead, read the words on the door next to mine. ‘FRONT TOWARD ENEMY’, all in pink.

  When I knock on the door, I do it quick.

  “Grimgrave? Grim? Grim? Are you in there? Are you home? Grim? Graves?”

  Echoes down the corridor. No answer, not from within Grimgrave’s room, and not from without.

  Reach for the handle. Almost make it. But then I pull back.

  “No,” I hiss. “It’s better like this. Better if you’re not here.”

  Nowhere to go but breakfast.

  No giant skeleton lurks in ambush as I peer around the corner, no towering horror-film extras at the end of the corridor to the Big Room. I pull my coat tight, straighten my spine, square my shoulders. Move slowly and carefully, ignore the sword-wound ache in my gut and the lingering cold sweat on my skin.

  I make it back to the Big room, unbothered by an old bag of bones.

  The Big Room, the main room of Plato Base, is no less impressively massive after a solid sleep. Vaulted and columned, concrete pressed into marble’s role, rainbow illustrations on every wall, defaced flags and ruined dresses facing each other across the void. I’ve emerged from the same corridor that Grimgrave helped me hobble down last night, right next to the big mess of sofas and beanbags and rugs, the assorted junk and coffee tables, the pieces of kitchen looted from the corpse of a house. A domesticated corner, for those who refuse domestication.

  All four screens of the quad-television setup are switched on, sound turned down to a trickle, all playing the same cartoon to an audience of about two dozen drowsy zoogs. Some curl snug in the animal bed, while others lie scattered around the floor in twos and threes. One zoog is trying unsuccessfully to scale the arm of a sofa, egged on by a pair who have already made it up onto the cushions. A few doze, but most are watching the screens with real attention, hissing softly as the action unfolds. Didn’t think zoogs could appreciate television, much less Japanese cartoons about magical card games. Maybe they like the bright colours.

  Nerys’ distinctive black-oil-and-ooze is absent. Grimgrave isn’t here either, unless she’s hiding behind a pillar.

  A handful of the most alert zoogs go stiff at the sight of me, tails standing on end, eyes swivelling wide. But they relax when I ignore them, because I’ve got better things to stare at.

  Six whole skeletons.

  One moon-skeleton waits at a polite distance, probably the same one which greeted me in the corridor. Two are stationed at the entrance, the doorways that lead back out toward the lunar surface. Another is crouched by the sofas, playing with a trio of zoogs. A final pair of skeletons flank the chaotic computer setup at the rear of the domesticated space, standing either side of the big swivel chair.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  No two of the skeletons are identical, covered with random bits of body armour, stuffed with wires and computer parts, skulls studded with cameras and sensors and speakers, miniature screens attached to their torsos. All giants though, nine feet at least, and grey as rain clouds.

  The sprawling computer setup no longer waits on standby. Two of the 3D printers are lit up, whirring away, tiny arms and nozzles working back and forth inside their cases. A gutted drone lies on one of the side-tables, mechanical intestines splayed, soldering irons and spare parts ready for surgery. The dozen screens of the setup show a spread of internet browser windows, command line terminal sessions, esoteric programs I can’t identify — and camera feeds.

  Some of the cameras show the moon’s surface, the exterior of Plato base, a shot or two of the lunar sky, and some spots I’ve never seen before, rustling with black vegetation, the slopes of a moon-mountain. But most of the camera views are inside, right here, in the Big Room.

  My face, high-quality, real-time, full-colour, staring out from three dozen camera feeds.

  My body, my clothes, my posture, my hair, filmed from behind, from both sides, from above, from low angles, from everywhere.

  “ … h-hello?”

  “Hello there! And a very good morning to you, lass! You must be Octavia.”

  The voice comes from the nearest skeleton, from the speakers wired below the jaw.

  I jump out of my skin. Several nearby zoogs flinch in unison, then let out soft little hisses of irritation. A few others make scratchy croaking noises, zoog giggles.

  A screen on the skeleton’s chest displays another emote: (─?─)

  Camera-eyes like beetle shells in fleshless sockets, jaw a lock-toothed grin of elongated teeth, towering bones spliced with metal supports. To where am I supposed to speak? To what am I speaking?

  “Good … uh … morning?”

  The emote changes.

  (?﹏?)

  “Oh, oh dear! I am sorry. I didn’t mean to surprise you, dear thing.” The voice carries on from the cluster of speakers; the skeleton doesn’t move. “I thought even Grimgrave had enough sense to warn that you might run into a bloody great skeleton or three. Tch, that girl. She’ll never learn. My apologies! Really now.”

  That voice.

  Soft and bubbly, warm and motherly, bouncing with a natural flirtatious lilt, the kind of innocent unintended ease that captures hearts without meaning so.

  And intensely Scottish, peppered with buttery rolled ‘r’ sounds, spiky and strong and smooth all at once. A teasing smile behind every word, a tug inside my chest as each liquid syllable flicks off a dancing tongue. I should be blushing, averting my gaze, shying away from a temptress sliding close.

  But the words come from a speaker, strapped to a giant grey skeleton.

  “That’s … uh … that’s quite all right, thank you.”

  I fall back on formal politeness.

  “Aww, ain’t you a sweetheart,” says the beautiful voice from the skeleton-speakers. “Anyhow, I’ve got the advantage on you right now. I should introduce myself proper, before we get all confused. Can’t be doing anything without names, can we?” The emote on the skeleton’s chest-screen changes again: (￣ω￣)/ “I’m The Locus of Lost Signals, and I know for a fact Grimgrave told you to expect me. You can call me Signal, sweetheart. Try not to shorten it to ‘Sig’, unless I’m about to be crushed by a falling piano, in which case I might even give you a reward.”

  Somebody’s typing. Fast fingers on mechanical keys.

  A young woman, crouched tight in the plush swivel chair, hunched before the dozen computer screens. I didn’t notice her at first, tucked away deep in the glow; I was too distracted by the skeletons. Can’t see much of her, just the side of a knee, a tangle of black hair, the edge of a baggy sock.

  “Is that … ” I gesture at her, half-address the skeleton. “Are you … who … ”

  “I hear Grimgrave gave you the general introduction. Must have been quite an experience with that girl! Our Grimmy doesn’t know when to stop.” The voice giggles softly, then suddenly sharpens. “She didn’t lure you into her bedroom, did she?”

  “Uh, no, I … no, I took another room.” I glance at the woman in the chair again. “Excuse me, but … are you … is that—”

  “Glad to hear that, then. If I were you, I wouldn’t have gotten a wink if she’d tried it on. Good on you, lass. Didya sleep well?”

  “Y-yes, thank you, but—”

  “Take it slow.” She draws out the last word, a liquid purr tugging at my heart. “You’ve had a wee shock, far as I hear—”

  She’s not answering. Smothering me with words.

  I turn on my heel, walk away from the blathering skeleton. Take the back route, circle the edge of the domesticated corner, behind the rear of the televisions; some of the zoogs watch me, distracted from their cartoons. I eye the big cloudy tank with the dead Moon Beast floating inside; have to get within three feet to go around this way, close enough to reach out and touch the glass, half-nervous that ‘Gregory’ isn’t really dead after all.

  Behind me, the skeleton cuts off with a sigh.

  On the other side of the domesticated corner, I have a proper view of the woman in the computer chair.

  “Signal?”

  The Locus of Lost Signals is not what I expected.

  A bird’s nest of tangled black hair raked back from a brown face, cheeks both chubby and gaunt at the same time. High cheekbones, small chin, watery eyes, washed out by electric light from the screens. British Indian or British Pakistani, at a guess, though the accent had none of either. Crouched in the chair, feet drawn up onto the seat, wiggling one knee at high speed. Overweight beneath her clothes, shapeless jogging bottoms and a huge black hoodie with a high collar, festooned with pockets and pouches, wires vanishing into half of them. A pair of chunky black boots stand next to the chair. Massive wired headphones cover her ears, cable linked to a miniature computer strapped to her right forearm.

  Dead-fish eyes flicker across the screens, fingers tapping at a pair of keyboards. I’m well within her line of sight, but she doesn’t look up.

  My own face stares out from half a dozen of her screens, tired and tense, tight around the eyes. My body on camera, captured from too many angles — behind my back, above my head, down low on the floor. Shoulders, ankles, elbows. The hem of my skirt. The collar of my jumper. The colour of the skin on my throat. Is that really me, a body dismantled into these disconnected views, a scarecrow draped in an over-large coat?

  Straighten my spine, settle my hands, compose my face. Doesn’t help. How is that me up there?

  Octavia Carter blinks out from those windows, face sectioned for classification. Close-ups on lips, chin, eyes, ears, hair all a mess. Profile views, one from each side. Eyes separated, zoomed in tight, isolated from each other on separate displays.

  The sagging slit of my right eye, the jagged anger of my scar. Is Signal staring at my facial paralysis?

  Impossible to know. She’s looking everywhere.

  “Is that … ” I glance at the pair of flanking skeletons; they’ve turned to face me. “Is that you? Signal? Is that who I’m talking to?”

  Hands hesitate on the keyboard. I take a step closer, trying for a better look at her face. One of the two flanking skeletons moves forward, blocks my path, raises a hand.

  An emote flashes onto the ribcage screen.

  ( ? _ ? )

  “Please don’t get up close and personal with my core,” the skeleton says, the woman types. “Not until I can trust you not to touch. Sorry, I know it might seem a wee bit much, but we’re not close friends, are we now? We aren’t even comrades yet, lass. We’ve only just met. Please don’t, however much I’d love to welcome you right. Don’t let Grimgrave give you the wrong impression, we’re not all so touchy-feely.”

  “You’re not?” I breathe a sigh of relief. Take half a step back. “Okay, I respect that. That’s good, actually. But … I’m sorry, ‘core’? You mean the woman in the chair. You, in the chair, I mean. Not the computers?”

  “Haha,” Signal says, doesn’t sound very amused. “I’d prefer you not touch the computers either. If you just want to shitpost or watch anime, there’s plenty of spare laptops.” One of the two skeletons gestures at the jumble of machinery and parts on the floor. “Unless you happen to know what you’re doing. But Nerys doesn’t choose girls based on my kind of criteria.”

  I am struck by a deranged urge to impress this woman.

  Is it the voice, modulated to hook me with warm and wriggling bait? Am I being seduced, hypnotised, swayed by a subconscious note in that bubbly, bouncing tone? Is that why she uses the speakers and the skeletons? Signal doesn’t look that much older than me; the woman in the chair cannot be past her mid twenties. But the voice sounds so mature. Wise and worldly, like she knows everything.

  And she does, doesn’t she? I’m in all her cameras, my body caught from every angle, my face partitioned out, every piece of me known. Is she recording this, cataloguing me? Filing me away? Breaking me down with some analytic algorithm for later use?

  Maybe that’s why I want to impress her. To be regarded well in the artificial eyes of this one-woman panopticon, so that voice will laugh and croon at me. Be agreeable, submissive, and obedient, or else the electronic voices will not be so friendly.

  And that gaze will become violation.

  I focus on other parts of her screens; the command line terminals look vaguely familiar. Grab that handhold.

  “Well, I recognise your terminal emulator,” I say. Voice neutral. Tread careful. “I think. Or, uh. Maybe not? I thought it was GhostCat, but … ”

  I’m blushing, heat in my cheeks, rose on the screens. Body betraying me.

  “Ooooh!” Signal purrs, bouncy and strong. “The fact you even know what a terminal emulator is already puts you above the competition. Grimgrave said you were a bit of a techie, but I don’t usually put too much stock in her prattle. Well, actually she told me you were a cyborg, can you believe that? Our Grims can be quite offensive, but she means well. And yes, you’re mostly correct. This was GhostCat, once upon a time. Good catch.”

  Signal purrs again. Makes me want to turn and run. I blush harder, my treacherous cheeks hot with shame.

  “Just a guess,” I say. “I’ve used it before, that’s all.”

  Signal’s simulated voice drops to a honeyed whisper. “Wanna see the secret?”

  Throat closes up. “S-secret?”

  “Just between you and me,” Signal murmurs. “If you understand what you’re looking at, then you might be interested. Grimgrave, Bright, even Nerys, none of them understand. But, maybe you’ll get it, Octavia?”

  I want it. I want her to keep purring at me with approval.

  But I clench my jaw. Tight and true. Don’t give in.

  “Well,” Signal says after a moment. “Here you go.”

  Fingers flicker across the keyboards. A fresh terminal window flowers open on the central monitor. In place of the old GhostCat logo is a stylised ASCII zoog wrapped around the name of an operating system.

  “Zoog OS?”

  “My own special brew,” Signal says. “Custom built, all compiled right here, including the kernel. Maybe I’ll let you peek under the hood sometime, when we’re better acquainted and all that. Until then, you’re more welcome to touch the computers than you are me, but probably don’t touch them all the same. Though, if you ask first, and ask really nicely, maybe I’ll let you stroke my keyboard.”

  Hold onto a shiver, don’t let it show. Good thing I’m still catching up. “You wrote your own operating system?”

  “Well, made it from other parts mostly, though some of it is my original work. But the result is all mine. Designed for my unique user requirements, if you know what I mean.”

  The skeleton in front of me shows another emote: ???)

  But the woman in the chair shows nothing, face like a mask.

  “It’s, uh … ” I glance at the 3D printers, the CNC machines, the wires trailing all over the place. Don’t know where to look; keep trying to catch her eye, but she won’t. All I get is the skeleton-cameras, hard glossy lenses. “Very … impressive, yes.”

  “Aww, thank you, lass. Like I said, Grimmy and Bright don’t have any appreciation for the technical. Maybe you and I have something in common?”

  My traitorous little heart says yes please, but my head feels like I’m a moth fluttering close to a spider’s web.

  Crush that feeling. Tighten my prosthetic fist until I feel the fingers creak against the palm.

  I refuse to be seduced by the voice of a machine.

  The skeletons stare at me. The woman stares at her screens. I stare at her. Which part is Signal?

  A sigh from a skeleton-speaker. “Octavia? Please, just treat my osteo-servus like you would any other part of my body. They’re extensions of me, okay? No different to a limb or a foot or something. If you want to say something to me, address one of them. I don’t mind so much if you have to touch them, but don’t fiddle with them or anything. Unless you really want to hold my hand, I suppose.”

  I’m sure she’d hear whatever I say, wherever I say it. Don’t say that out loud. How sensitive are the skeletons’ microphones?

  “I … uh … well … ”

  “You wear a pair of prosthetics, don’t you? Nerys told me. How would you like if I treated your hand like it’s not part of your body? If I refused to accept something passed with that hand, if I insisted you use the other? You get it now?”

  My mouth hangs open, cheeks gone hot, can’t find the words.

  Whatever else she’s trying to do, she’s got me there.

  Straighten my spine, bow my head.

  “I didn’t think,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

  Signal giggles, wet and warm; Signal’s ‘core’ doesn’t even twitch, just typing. “No need to bow and scrape, lass. Nothing to apologise for. I know it’s all a bit weird. But then again, we’re all a wee bit strange up here. You included, I would guess, in your own special way.”

  I stare at one of the skeletons instead, running my eyes up and down the greyish bones and armour plates and cybernetic interior. The skull grins, jaw wired tight, eyes empty dark lenses.

  “It is a little … difficult,” I say. “They are skeletons. Corpses. Walking around.”

  Resist the urge to ask where she got them. Don’t want to know.

  “Oh!” says Signal. “No, they’re not real bone. That would be very interesting, but bone is hard to come by, at least in the quantities I need. The framework’s made from moon dust, compacted, heat-treated, sealed, all that sort of thing.” One of the skeletons gestures toward the mess of 3D printers and CNC machines again. “Made right here on Luna.”

  “You 3D printed with moon rock?”

  “Plus a touch of magic.”

  I shake my head. “And is this your real voice I’m hearing? I don’t see your lips moving.”

  Another big sigh from Signal, from the skeleton-speakers. Her voice loses most of its bounce. “Don’t you think that’s a very rude question?”

  “I … I’m sorry, it’s just, this is all very … ”

  “Of course it’s my real voice. Recorded, analysed, processed through an algorithm of my own design.” She tuts. Unimpressed. Disappointed. “You ask some very forward questions, Octavia. Grimgrave’s fault, I suppose. That or Nerys can’t resist picking the most irritating prospects for new girls. I shouldn’t have expected better, should I?”

  Heat sinks deep, kindles flame in my throat.

  I don’t like what this woman is trying to do to me.

  “I shall have to ask you to excuse my rudeness, miss Signal,” I address the nearest moon-dust skeleton. “However, I am under a considerable amount of stress. I have been ripped from my life, with less than twenty four hours to adjust. Yesterday I was shot, then stabbed, then brought to the moon, then left in a pool of my own blood, then attacked by a fucking clown!”

  Anger spikes, flares bright, my voice rising into a shout. Don’t mean to. Don’t mean to swear either. My left hand flies to my mouth, covers my lips. How could I just lose control like that?

  I think I made several zoogs flinch, in my peripheral vision. Soft hisses follow the brief silence.

  Can’t tell where the skeleton is staring, not without glancing at Signal’s screens. But she looks everywhere, at everything, sees every angle of anger and guilt on my face. So I stare right back, into one of the cameras, despite the mortified glow in my cheeks.

  Lower my hand. Try again.

  “Pardon my language. As I was saying, I have been under a lot of stress. And now I am apparently part of a … a magical girl terrorist cell, I suppose? Whatever you call yourselves. Whether I want to be or not. I am surrounded by renegades, criminals, and lunatics. No offence intended.”

  “And zoogggggs,” rasps a particularly brave zoog.

  “And zoogs,” I add. “So, under these circumstances, I think I can be excused for a lapse in etiquette.” But then I crumple, fumble the landing. “I … I ask your forgiveness. I’m sorry.”

  Signal’s fingers tap at her keyboard.

  “Granted, lass,” she says, voice all soft and gooey again, soothing my anger. “I’m sorry too. I’ve been doing this for too long, it’s so easy to forget what it was like, back at the start. I’ve heard all about how you got stabbed by Scarlet Edge. Miracle you got away, you know? That girl is responsible for a lot of deaths. I would offer you a hug, but, well.” The nearest skeleton raises one rubber-clad hand. “I’m not much good at hugging.”

  Emote flashes onto the ribcage-screen: (っ???)っ

  “Thank you for the apology,” I say. A glance at the real Signal, the woman crouched in the chair. Still glued to her screens, face without emotion. “But no thank you on the hug, yes. I’m not good at those either.”

  Haven’t hugged anybody but Willow and my grandmother in a very long time. And my grandmother isn’t big on hugs.

  Signal sighs. “I’m so sorry this happened to you, lass. You must be terrified.”

  No.

  Not really.

  Which comes as a surprise. I’m not afraid, at least not of running into Scarlet Edge again, or getting shot by Dream Control. My only real fear is for Willow.

  Makes no sense. In a Dreamland overlap, on the moon, surrounded by mad people and Dream monsters. I should be terrified. But it’s the opposite; I feel less scared than I have in longer than I can remember.

  “At least you’re more sensible than Grimgrave,” I mumble.

  “Hahaha!” Signal laughs, warm and soft, like she’s trying to get me to put my head in her lap. “Oh dear, I am sorry, I shouldn’t laugh at that. She did you a nasty turn. Did she feed you a load of guff about hazing and initiation?”

  “Yes. She did. After she shot me.”

  “Well, don’t you worry, Octavia. I don’t haze. You’re safe with me, lass.”

  Safe and recorded, my face displayed on a dozen screens, cut up into sections, my eyes isolated, my scar on display. Very safe.

  “Right, that’s … that’s good. And you’re a magical girl as well, yes? Just to check I’m on the right page.”

  “Mmhmm,” Signal purrs. “Me, Grimmy, and Bright. That’s us at the moment. Plus you.”

  Signal’s moon-skeletons are fascinating, despite everything. Her ‘osteo-servus’. Magically animated frameworks, bipedal drones, stuffed with network hardware, cameras, sensors, microphones, transmitting everything back to their mistress. I can’t help but wonder how they’re animated, how much is magic and how much is technology. Not to even dream of her central computer setup, which I would love to get my hands on, see where all those cables lead, play with those 3D printers. If only it wasn’t on the moon, if only I wasn’t so far from Willow, I would love to ask so many questions.

  If only Signal wasn’t even more dangerous than Grimgrave. If only it wasn’t for that voice creeping a hand down my back. If only she wasn’t a spider crouched at the centre of a web.

  I would rather face Grimgrave’s shotgun again than whatever Signal is trying to do.

  The Locus of Lost Signals makes my skin crawl.

  “I didn’t know magical girls could be so … ”

  “Hands off?” Signal suggests. “Some of us do prefer to fight at range, when we have to fight at all. Besides, not everything we do is about cracking skulls. Somebody has to do the legwork, keep us connected to the world, or all the skull-cracking won’t make a lick of difference. Do you think that’s true, Octavia? Do you and I think the same? Or are you more Grimgrave’s type? I shan’t be offended if you are, don’t worry. I think you’re quite the sweetheart already.”

  My eyes glide across her screens, trying to ignore her question, admiring the setup despite the use, despite my face all over the windows. She’s the sort of techie who lives in the terminal, but I half-recognise other programs too, system monitors and the like, though I’m not familiar with whatever they’re monitoring.

  But then I snag on a browser window, little images in a grid. Raised fists, drenched in red. Cackling maws in pale faces. Scarlet statues standing tall.

  “Ah,” Signal says. She taps a key. Kills the window.

  “Hey, no!” I step forward. A skeleton moves to block me, but I’m not trying to touch Signal, I’m gesturing at the screen. “Don’t hide it! That was me! That was me on there! Wasn’t it?”

  “I’m sorry, Octavia.” She’s not purring now, gone dead serious. “I shouldn’t have left that open. You don’t want to see that, you’re not prepared for it.”

  “Not prepared for—!? Excuse me! I’m not a little girl, I know what that kind of website is.”

  “I don’t mean it’s pornography. If it was just that, gosh, I’d share all you like—”

  “I didn’t mean that either!” Drown that blush, don’t let her distract. “That was me. Signal! I was … I’m trying to … I am trying to trust you. Show me.”

  Signal sighs through her skeleton-speakers. She taps a couple of keys, returns the browser window, full-screens it on her middle monitor. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  I peer forward, around the skeleton’s flank.

  The URL says ‘magibooru’; it’s an image catalogue. I’ve seen websites like this before, full of user-uploaded images, mostly anime fanart. A few out there are dedicated to the cultural fandom around magical girls. English internet allows a couple of legal ones, carefully whitewashed and heavily moderated, squeaky clean and unproblematic. The foreign ones are usually more interesting. I think I’ve seen this one before, years ago.

  Signal has it open to a ‘recent uploads’ page. They’re all of me.

  Octavia Carter, as seen in the snippet of footage released by Dream Control. My showdown with Scarlet Edge, drawn in dozens of different styles. In some I’m a cackling madwoman, coated with blood, fist raised to break the heavens. In others I’m too clean, too shiny, drawn like a cartoon, my proportions absurd, wasp-thin waist and breasts like balloons. Several artists have imagined fanciful magical girl outfits for me, poofy dresses and flared skirts, tight corsets and thigh-high boots. One has given me a comically oversized fist. Another has turned me into a horned demon, with forked tongue and cloven hooves.

  Scarlet Edge plays the heroine. Angelic, beautiful, perfect, even in the pictures where she’s taken a few punches or gotten her dress ripped. Even when she’s drawn like a sex doll. Even the one artist who’s reduced us to rolling on the ground, trading blows. Even when I’m towering over her like a Nightmare, and she is a saint sheltered behind her sword.

  Not a single artist has gotten it right. Not one of them has captured the reality, the moment she staggered back in pain.

  A couple of pieces have the whole trio present, but Azure and Dawn receive even less attention.

  “I told you,” Signal says gently. “Magical girls get used to this kind of attention. Usually it happens slowly, ease them into it, make sure they don’t take it too personal. And to us, well, it doesn’t happen at all, we’ve got no profile. But you were all over the telly. Kind of an event. Some of these artists like to compete with each other on pure speed. You’re the flavour of the month in at least a dozen online communities, forums, message boards, the like.”

  “This can’t be legal,” I murmur.

  I feel sick.

  “Not in Britain,” Signal says. “Not without a good VPN, but then again GCHQ can’t catch ‘em all, so this was accessible in the UK for about twelve hours, overnight. This site’s Japanese, but there’s plenty of others, and you’re the hot topic on most of them, lass. Are you telling me you’ve never left the walled garden? Octavia, whatever you do, don’t search your own name, not on any of these places, at least not until you transform and they forget—”

  “I know how to use a VPN to surf the internet.” I try and fail to swallow the taste of acid. “I’m just … I didn’t know, I … ”

  “You’re popular. Five minutes of fame. Everyone new gets it, but usually just magical girls themselves. Not us, not when we’re so underground. Don’t worry, they’ll all forget when you transform.” Signal’s voice drops to a murmur. “Though with this new plan, we might all be getting a fresh five minutes. That’ll be different.”

  “You mean all of these will vanish? Be forgotten, like the footage of me? Grimgrave told me about that, but it sounded too good to be true.”

  “Aye. Well, sort of. Most of these will vanish. When it comes to fanart specifically, some pieces tend to stick around though a somnus reset.”

  “Why? What determines that?”

  Signal sighs, then laughs, almost sad. “If I could answer that, we would be much closer to unmasking every magical girl in the world. If you figure it out, let me know. I’ll forward you my notes sometime, but they don’t make good light reading over breakfast.”

  I can’t stop staring at the thumbnails, all the little images supposed to be me, though the sight makes me want to vomit. Tug my coat tighter, cover my breasts with my forearms; don’t want to be seen, not by Signal, not by anybody. Not one of the pictures gets me right, not least the slit of my right eye and the jagged scar down my cheek. Some make it stand out, harsh and red as fresh blood. Others minimize it, or draw me with one eye closed, or omit the scar entirely. That’s worse. Not really me, just an image they saw.

  Don’t cry. Don’t tear up. Not in front of Signal, not in front of these insults. I will not let this take my dignity.

  The page reloads; Signal didn’t touch anything, an automatic refresh. Several new drawings appear at the top of the page, all mundane or boring or obscene.

  Except one. The most recent.

  Scarlet Edge stands on the right, I on the left, facing each other like old west gunslingers, framed by an impossible sunset in purple and orange, a celestial furnace bearing witness to our duel. But Scarlet Edge is an unfinished sketch, a suggestion of dress untouched by colour, her face an empty oval. The little Octavia is detailed and complete.

  I gesture at the screen. “Excuse me, Signal, but that one, the most recent upload, it’s different, it—”

  Her fingers flicker over the keyboard. Art fills the browser window.

  The slit of my eye, the line of my scar, the pressure in my lips as I stare down Scarlet Edge. It’s all there, all real, all me. The mad cackle in my face as well — but exactly as it felt, elation and risk and mania, ten years of good behaviour detonating behind my eyes. Right there in pencil and ink, a lifetime of mounting pressure, bursting out on the page. And beneath even that, a hint of panic and fear, so fragile and vulnerable.

  This artist knows me. Knew me complete from a snippet of expression. Whoever drew this, they understand.

  “I … uh … ” My voice comes out weak. Have to clear my throat. Can barely think. “I rather like that one. I don’t want it to vanish. When I transform, I mean. Is there a way to—”

  Signal’s fingers fly across her keyboard. My phone buzzes and chimes in my coat pocket.

  New message. Unknown number. No text, just an attachment, the picture I requested.

  “There you go,” Signal says. “And no need to thank me, it’s my pleasure. If you’re the one holding onto it, it should endure through the reset, when you first transform. I’ll save a copy too, just in case.”

  “Thank you. Thank you, Signal. I … wait, how did you do that? My phone was on silent.”

  A fresh emote appears on one of the skeleton-screens: ˉ\_(ツ)_/ˉ

  Force a polite laugh, don’t ask again. Signal is already inside my phone, however she did it.

  This illustration of me is almost worth the last twenty four hours. I want to show it to Willow, show her what it really felt like. The wind tugging at my hair, revealing the scar down my cheek, every fold and crease correct. The mad light behind my eyes, that feeling I couldn’t deny, caught real and raw, no fictional embellishment. My prosthetic fist raised high, coated with blood and gore, but just a fist.

  “Mm?”

  I freeze.

  “Octavia?” Signal says. “Is there something wrong with it after all? You can never tell with these fan artists, sometimes they sneak uncomfortable stuff past a casual glance. It’s one thing with fictional characters, but magical girls are real people. And don’t worry, I’ve not been staring at the ones with the absurd proportions. Nobody cares about those, they’re not really you, just nonsense. Octavia?”

  The artist has drawn my prosthetic.

  On the news my prosthetic was edited out. No cripples on the BBC, no missing limbs replaced with carbon fibre, no disabled Dreamers, no magical girls anything but perfect.

  Who drew this? Grimgrave? One of the Trio? A random Dream Control agent who saw me escape? ‘John Smith’? Nerys?

  Willow?

  “Octavia?”

  “It’s nothing,” I say. Reflex. Deep breath. “Just a really beautiful picture. I wasn’t expecting it, after all the … well, the boobs and gore. This one is really me, really how it felt. That’s all.”

  Smile, look up at a skeleton, put my phone away. Make a mental note of the URL in the browser window. Maybe there’s a way to contact the artist.

  Did you draw this, Willow? You must have done. It can’t be anybody else. Nobody else sees me this way, knows me so intimately, cares so much.

  Because in that picture, in that art, I almost look—

  Beautiful?

  And then I know, though I don’t understand how. My joyous handhold turns to superheated ash. A hot and writhing ember in my heart knows the truth.

  Willow didn’t draw this.

  Home Is Dead To Me And I Am Dead To Home, (by Ra?!), a rendition of one of the slogans/designs on the walls of the Big Room in Plato Base. It's fascinating to see readers making these things a reality. Thank you so much! (I have also once again updated the , which is just full of so much stuff.)

  Maidens right away, you can:

  Maidens so far, but none of this would be possible without all of you, the audience! Thank you!