| grabbed the railing and started around the edge of the hole — both 
the rail and the floor seemed to be holding up. "Come on! He can't 
seriously be dead. No way." 


| shoulda known then that | was kidding myself. | wouldn'ta said that 
if | wasn't already thinking he was. It was painful slowing my pace to 
make sure there wasn't another hole ahead, but | got to the spot 
where he shoulda been. 


"He's seriously not here!" 


"Come on, we've got a mission to do," Dean said when he noticed 
I'd stopped moving. How could he even be serious? "We have to 
keep going.” 


"Fuck the mission! Sammy just — he's gonna show up here 
eventually, right? Maybe time's just wrong." 


"That's unlikely..." Emmy said. 
"We need to keep going," Dean growled. 


"I'm staying here and waiting for Sammy, dammit! If you seriously 
think the mission is so much more important, then go ahead. We'll 
catch up." 


"... Fine." Dean clapped me on the shoulder. "But if you see that 
mask, run, okay?" 


"Yeah." | nodded. 

Emmy kept glancing back at me until they were out of sight. 
There was no escape from the big bad cat 

| think they left about an hour ago. Sammy's still not here. 

... Run if | see the mask, huh? 

| would, but | seriously can't feel my legs anymore. 


Two little mice left to make him fat 


Two little mice scampered ‘cross the desk 


We've been going for hours. | think we're getting closer, though. 
There's a stitch in my side, though, and my feet are starting to ache 
even with my orthopedic insoles. "Hey, Dean, can we stop for a bit?" 


He frowns. "We're almost there.” 

One was exhausted and she had to rest 
"| know. | just need to rest." 
He stops as he reaches the next landing. "Alright." 


| sigh with relief and sit down on the steps. "Do you think we're going 
to get out of here alive?" 


"We gotta try." He leaned back against the wall and kept his light 
focused on the flight of stairs behind me. "That's all we can do." 


"Yeah... ." 


Silence that even | could tell was awkward fell. | thought about 
A’isha. I'm sure she'll be able to support herself financially without 
me, but — 


There was no escape from the big bad cat 


The factory bends to my will. The workers live 
at my mercy alone. | am God here. 


Diary Entry: Fiona Murphy, 1906 


This place is a prison. We cannot leave. Those 
outside this dungeon must not know. Always 
more workers. Hundreds. Thousands. The 
factory expands. The factors shifts. | heard the 
overseers. They say it is one of many. 
Connected by the Janus Doors. What do they 
mean? The walls move. Too many floors. Too 
many rooms. Can't keep track. Nothing seems 
real. My stomach churns and | vomit daily. 
They inject our meals. Just enough, just 
enough to keep us alive and useful. The noise 
is deafening - the sound of machines and 
screams. 


And the toil never ends. People work 
themselves to death. And then are fed to that 
infernal machine. We make everything. Food. 
Toys. Clothes. 


And weapons. Unlike any | could imagine. 
Terrible, terrible weapons. 


We are allowed four hours for sleep but | often 
wake to the sound of Harvestmen. The 
scraping of metal on metal. In the morning, we 
sometimes find someone missing. We dare not 
question it. Need to keep our head down, can't 
look them in the eyes. 


They aren't human. Not anymore. 


Diary Entry: Randolph T. Metzger, 
1912 


The last thing | hear is Dean's startled swearing. 


One little mouse left to make him fat 


One little mouse scampered ‘cross the map 
A white blur shot out of the darkness. 


"SHIT!" | had no idea it could move so fast! Something that was 
probably a piece of Emmy's skull landed on my vest, but | was 
barely paying attention to that. I'd already started running, and there 
was no way | was looking down or looking back. 


| ran. | kept running. | could hear myself getting closer to the kid, and 
that was the only thing that was keeping me going. | had to reach 
her. Even if | die right afterward, | at least gotta tell her that she's not 
forgotten, and help's coming. They're gonna send in the big guns if 
none of us make it back on time. 


He found the cheese and fell into the trap 


My boots splashed in something as | finally reached the bottom. The 
whole floor was covered in some sort of liquid an inch deep. The 
darkness was a lot worse than on the stairs, so | could barely see a 
few feet in front of me. 


"Help! Please!" 


| ran towards the voice, and there she was: A little girl with short 
black hair and a white dress. | knew there had to be a kid down 
here. | fell to my knees in relief and hugged her. "It's okay. Help's 
coming. It's going to be okay." 


"Thank you, Mister. | was so hungry... ." 
There was no escape from the big bad cat 


She suddenly tears a chunk out of my neck with teeth that are far 
too sharp to be human. | should have thought it was suspicious that 
she was standing and didn't seem injured. 


"There will be plenty of time for regrets in my stomach," she 
whispers as my brain suffocates. 


So here come more mice to make him fat 


Special Assets 


Saint Helene's Hospital didn't appear on any maps. You couldn't 
Google it or look it up in the Yellow Pages. The only way to find it 
was to know that it was there. 


Extracting himself and his packages from the Smart Car was an 
exercise in contortionism. The man called "Bullfrog" had driven golf 
carts with more leg room. On the other hand, it was better than a 
big-ass SUV that guzzled gas like a fish and handles like a drunk 
hippo. The day | can buy a car without worrying if it has enough 
room to carry the entire team plus tactical gear is the day I'll know 
I'm well and truly retired... 


Willow trees lined the red-brick path that led from the parking lot up 
to the hospital grounds proper, shading it from the midday sun. The 
dappled sunlight on the red brick reminded Bullfrog of a leopard's 
hide. Can a leopard change his spots? Why would he want to? 


A young boy's delighted laugh broke through the silence, 
accompanied by the sound of leaf-springs hitting concrete and the 
boy himself: hale and happy, with bright white teeth that struck a 
strong contrast to his dark, coffee-black skin. "Monsieur Grenouille!" 
he shouted. 


"Bonjour, Alain," Bullfrog said cheerfully, then continued in French: 
"It's good to see you again!" He picked up the young boy and 
embraced him in a fond, strong hug. 


"Alain! Alain! Where has that troublemaker gone t— OH! Mister 
Grenouille! | didn't know you'd arrived!" The harried young woman in 
the nun's habit adjusted a wayward lock of hair behind her ear. "I'm 
sorry, sir. It's these new legs. Since the moment he got them, he's 
been running all over the place. We can't keep track of him any 
more." 


Alain's legs had been amputated below the knee. When Bullfrog first 


met him, they had been replaced by twisted, crudely attached 
tendrils of scrap metal and steel. These carbon-fiber running blades 
suited him much better. "It's all right, sister. Alain is just making up 
for lost time, is all." 


"They're the same kind that Oscar Pistorius uses!" Alain said 
excitedly. "Some day I'll run with him in the Olympics!" 


"Is that so? A good goal to strive for. Run along now, Sister Amelié 
and | need to talk." Bullfrog put the boy back down and watched him 
dash back up the path, happily. He was joined by a one-armed girl 
and a boy who wore sunglasses and carried a red-and-white cane. 
"He seems happy," Bull observed. 


"The amnestics are doing their work. Sometimes he has nightmares, 
but most days he's like this: excited, happy... ordinary. We'll be 
ready to place him with an adoption agency soon, then our work 
here will be done." 


"You've done well," Bullfrog reassured her. "But... those legs. They 
must be expensive. Especially for a growing boy." 


"They're hand-me-downs," Sister Amelié admitted, "adjusted to fit 
him. UNICEF's black fund helped with the rest." She sighed and 
shook her head. "But you're not here to talk about Alain's legs, are 
you?" 


"No," Bullfrog admitted. "Is Doctor Lai around?" 


"I'll take you to see him." 


"Brigitte's case is unique," the older man explained. "She was, by 
far, the most heavily altered of that madman's test subjects who still 
maintains her own will. Thankfully, we got to her before the brain 
alterations were completed. Unfortunately, it means that her 
treatment will take longer. We can't just remove the foreign matter 
and replace it with Zero-Generation technology. Replacing her jaw 
alone will have to wait until she reaches her adult size, not to 
mention the need for lifelong hormone therapy... still, we were ready 
to begin removing some of the more extreme alterations, when this 


problem came up." 
"Had she ever been violent before?" Bullfrog asked. 


"It's inaccurate to claim she's being violent now," Dr. Lai admitted. 
"She hasn't tried to actively hurt anyone. She's just... uncooperative. 
The changes to her nervous system make her impossible to 
anesthetize. When we try to restrain her physically, she resists until 
the risk of injury to herself is so great we have to stop. Finally, we 
asked her if there was anything we could give her in exchange for 
her cooperation. She said she wanted to talk to you. We agreed not 
to remove any more of her alterations until you had the chance." 


"Yeah. Sorry about the wait, doctor. There was this thing with the 
U.S. military that kinda blew up. Paperwork and hearings for 
months..." 


"The 'Project Pandora’ incident?" 

"You know | can't confirm nor deny that, doc." 

"Well, you're here now. Do you want me to go in with you?" 
"Nah. I'll handle this one myself." 


"I'll be waiting inside, then. Call me if you need me." 


It was a very nice garden, with high walls covered in climbing roses. 
Four wedge-shaped plots radiated from the center, each one 
dominated by a different flower: pansies, marigolds, tansies and 
violets. Willow trees provided shade, their supple boughs swaying in 
the afternoon breeze. 


Brigitte sat at the edge of the fountain, wearing a yellow sundress 
and holding a pure white flower. She stared at the blossom in rapt 
wonder before handing it to Bullfrog as he sat down next to her. 
"pretty colors," she said, in a voice that buzzed and crackled like an 
old AM radio. 


Colors? Oh. Right. She can see in ultraviolet. Bullfrog took the 
flower from her, suppressing a shudder as his fingers brushed 


against the crudely formed steel talons that had replaced her arm 
below the elbow. "It's very pretty, yes," he agreed, admiring the pure 
white petals. 


"pretty colors,” Brigitte repeated. Her one normal eye sparkled 
happily. It looked grotesque compared to the horror of wires and 
steel that was the left side of her face. Her upper lip (all that was left 
of what had once been her mouth) moved in what was probably 
meant to be a smile. 


Bullfrog cleared his throat and looked away. "Mister Petomaine and 
Miss Chaton were sad they couldn't come. But they sent gifts." The 
broad-brimmed white hat he took from the hatbox was a bit too big 
for her, but she would (he hoped) grow into it. And the look of delight 
as she picked up and hugged the doll was impossible to fake. For a 
moment, she looked like an ordinary girl, delighting in new gifts 
given to her by people who cared very much. 


Then the blinking device that had replaced her jaw clicked and 
whirred and turned over. Oh well, Bullfrog thought. /t was nice while 
it lasted... "Doctor Lai says that you've been refusing your 
treatments," he said. "He says you've been..." He paused and 
reconsidered saying a bad girl. Who was he to make a moral 
decision in this instance? "... stubborn," he concluded. "Is something 
wrong?" 


Brigitte hugged the doll a little tighter and bowed her head, hiding 
her eyes under the brim of her new hat. "doctor lai says that the 
surgery will make brigitte normal again,” she said. "is that true?" 


He did, did he? A cruel lie to tell to a child... and a transparent one, 
too. "No," Bullfrog admitted. "It can't make you normal. But it can 
make you... ordinary. Just like Alain or Claire or Denis. Maybe they 
don't have legs, or an arm, or eyes, but they can still live a good, 
long, fulfilling life.” 


He was surprised when Brigitte shook her head violently, causing 
her hat to slip off her head. "brigitte does not want to be ordinary. 
bad things happen to ordinary people and they don't stop it." 


Oh. Bullfrog quickly re-evaluated the situation. "Bad things happen 


to special people too," he pointed out. "It's better to be ordinary." 
"chaton is not ordinary. chaton does not let bad things happen." 


Ah. Bullfrog grimaced as his mind returned to a place of rust, blood, 
and gunpowder smoke. Team Sparkplug had only been assigned to 
do the infiltration and assessment, but after what they had found in 
that abandoned bunker, all three of them had begged to participate 
in the takedown. It was just blind luck that Kitten had been the one 
to see the clockwork-and-flesh monstrosities come out of the walls. 
Little (then-nameless) Brigitte had recieved a front-row seat to a 
Grade A Psycho-Killer Kitten Rampage. /'d always felt the bit with 
the crowbar was over the top. 


"brigitte is special. brigitte can do things other people cannot. brigitte 
does not want to be ordinary." the little girl insisted. "brigitte wants to 
help." 


Would they let it happen? Brigitte was borderline: her deviations 
might be too far from baseline to fall under the GOC's "Special 
Assets Directive." She might end up back on the "harmless misfits" 
list - Tier 1 response, monitor but do not engage. Could the GOC 
use someone who could read a CD-ROM from the pattern of lights 
on its underside? 


This isn't my decision to make. 


Bullfrog picked up the white hat and put it back on the little girl's 
head. "I'll see what | can do," was all he said. 


"Yook? Would you mind explaining this?" 


"It looks like a standard request for access to Downstream 
Technology. Personnel enhancements, specifically," the smiling 
man said. 


"... it's a request for personnel enhancements... for an eight-year- 
old girl," D.C. Al Fine sighed. "The U.N. just issued a statement 
condemning the use of child soldiers in warfare, and one of your 
Team leaders is requesting augmentation for a little girl? How do 


you think that makes us look?" 


"Mmmmm. From what | can see, this is a request for a twelve-year 
course of treatment. Most of the alterations are cosmetic in nature - 
replacing Gen Zero artificial limbs with Gen Plus Two, that sort of 
thing. Most of the ones that aren't are "leave in place" orders for 
existing augments. She can opt out at any time, and nothing that 
could be construed as combat-oriented is scheduled until after she 
turns eighteen. This all looks above-board to me." 


"The Security Council will crucify us. The Americans are still bitter 
over losing that entire SEAL team. They're not going to look 
favorably upon the "U.N.'s personal stooges" building up paratech 
while they're still forbidden to do so by international treaty." 


"You know," the smiling man said, off-handedly. "You've been doing 
a lot of complaining, but | haven't heard you say 'No.” 


"| just wanted you and your team to know just how irritating this is," 
D.C. explained. She signed her name on the dotted line and threw 

the page into Assistant Director "Ukelele's" face. "Go on. Build your 
goddamn super-cyborg. See if | care." 


"Yes, ma'am," Ukelele said, grinning. He put his own signature (an 
alto clef symbol) in the appropriate space, then tossed the form into 
his outbox. Shine, little girl, shine. 


Then he went back to doing his quarterly budget request. Even 
when it came to saving the world, it was best to dot every i and 
cross every t. 


All Things Considered