The mecha’s armor plating groaned as another giant twelve-legged spider slammed against it. I shoved back. My megabot’s left arm swung out, smashing the monster into the hard-packed snow. Two more spiders replaced it, stepping over the twitching remains of the first.
I took a step back. The mecha’s foot slipped into open air.
“The giant python—she’s gone walkabout,” Steve stammered as I strode into the expansive Reptile Exhibit Hall.
I couldn’t run back into the drizzly night. Wildlife professionals don’t run, especially not the bloody founder and director of Australia’s Threatened and Extinct Animal Sanctuary.
And this big girl—my escaped snake—measured longer than five meters.
The sound of sobbing cleaved the war-torn air, assailing Hephaestus’s aching and stiff joints. It wasn’t just the grief rattling him—he knew that voice. And he’d never heard her cry like this before. Pushing off his cane, he propelled himself forward, increasing the pace of his uneven limp with every step.
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Gentle, green hills rolled before me. I raced across soft grass. Ancient white statues veiled in a delicate blanket of moss adorned the pastoral landscape. Behind me howled a wild horde of giant, chittering, angry, club-wielding prairie dogs bent on my destruction.
Eleanor Thornhail, what have you gotten yourself into now?
No matter what
As a general rule, Reynolds didn’t go into junior high girls’ bathrooms. But when three corpses turned up in a school lavatory stall all in one day, he tended to make an exception. Plus, he’d been called in to investigate.
All the way from New York City.
Reynolds squatted in front of…
Watching the one-yen coin tumbling seemingly endlessly midair, Ren Izumi said,
“Winner gets to update the signal tower’s hardware down on the planet. Fresh air after three months, ah! The loser has to stay here and overhaul the ship’s decrepit ventilation system. I call one.”
Himari Tanaka smiled. “Is that Toshiko-san’s lucky coin?”
SUBJECT: ARTHUR PENDRAGON
STATUS: ACTIVE
[INITIATING RELEASE]
…
Pale light pierces the darkness, tearing me from slumber. Every fiber in my body ignites with freezing fire.
Coughing, I wake with my face in the dirt, cold and damp beneath me as I struggle to lift my head. The light fades and I’m left…
“Hold on—we’re crashing!” the bigfoot bellowed as he pulled back on the aircraft’s controls.
I tucked my wings against my body and gripped the armrests. Squatch was not our regular pilot, and it showed.
Again I wished that Gob and Flats hadn’t had to deal with the Werewolf Plague of 1346.
It seemed odd that the daughter of Queen Titania considered an app her worst enemy, but throughout the centuries, this fae had never encountered a more devious opponent.
“Don’t be cross just because you don’t understand technology,” Wally, my human thrall—excuse me, he preferred the term flatmate—said. “You see—”
The windship settled in the clearing beyond the edge of the village. Grruha cut the engines, then sat in absolute stillness with his paws still on the controls. His eyes narrowed as he scanned the savannah from the viewports.
The village stood eerily quiet.
“Let’s see what emergency summons us!” Larru was already…
“Kaiju activity in quadrant E74-Delta. Standby for launch, I guess. Ugh, what a pain.” Bossa had no eyes to roll, but the wonky AI’s tone conveyed annoyance well enough.
I settled into the cockpit of my forty-ton mecha, determined to ignore the cold spear of doubt slicing through my mind as the walls of…
The inspector tapped on the microphone. A sharp burst of static filled the room. “All right. We have Prisoner WVM-01 here for questioning. Please detail for our records your involvement in the Silver Bridge Accident on December 15th, 1967.” He flicked on a floodlight, and I blinked behind my night vision goggles.
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