"Trauma," Harrigan said. "Something here in this world wants to help. This world has things that choose Powers, and forces souls into beings who don't have them. Buyer beware, I guess. But it won't be me who has to beware, right? Not when I have my campers."

Cassie, holding Schmendrick and her babies, advanced on the central defense engine. Husband and I shouted and screamed for her to stop.

"Go, Go!" Husband said, and was covered completely.

So I struggled, strained, pulled my way over to the central defense engine, trying to stop Cassie, to interpose myself the way I had with Art and Sean weeks ago. The tar had me in thick ropy strands, coating me, my legs and hands, soaking up blood where the Bees had cut me.

Cassie was fighting it. She was slow, struggling, shaking, hugging the gray mass in her arms. The tar parted over one of her eyes, it stared with a horror-filled blue gaze, looking at me, at the central defense engine, its grinding gears, its hissing steam.

"Oh, that's awful, just look at poor Cassie and the little dinosaur vermin things," Harrigan said. "Sure hope nothing happens to them."

"I'll do it, Harrigan, I'll help you," I said. "Just let up! Stop hurting my guys!"

"I really don't think so, Owen. Not like you are now. I went into this knowing that, hoping we could team up, maybe make some money. Didn't have a ton of optimism for it, but had to try. You just don't have the right attitude."

Cassie tried to twist in place, to face me as I slowly fought my way to her. I heard her, growling, trying to shout, though the tar covered her mouth and nose.

"Your guys, as you call them, need to be gone. They'll try to help you, won't they? The next Owen, I mean. They helped you this time, after knowing you from before."

Cassie lifted the squirming bundle. Held it out. It took all her strength. Held Schmendrick and her babies out for me to take.

"I'll treat the next Owen Walsh, Owen Iteration 46, like a partner. And you'll never guess what Owen's going to feast on, every night for dinner, without knowing who he's eating."

I stretched, reached for the bundle, arms out...

"All right, the drones are in position," Harrigan said. "Sorry. I gotta stop your machine here, and I only have the one way."

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Cassie quiveringly threw the bundle, and I caught it. Schmendrick, her babies, covered with the gray tar, squirming.

Then Cassie, with the jerky, shaky motion that meant she wasn't in control, flung herself into the gears of the central defense engine. It screeched, smoked, burst into flame.

And I heard it form sounds, almost a voice in its death throes. Caaarneeee Caannn Taay…Was I hallucinating it in my shock? The groaning metal was screaming carni can teum.

The engine wound down, began shedding parts. Chunks of metal, stone, glass, clanged and clattered across the floor. The gears, now coated with red, halted.

"Looks like she was just a body after all," Harrigan said. "See you soon, Owen. Not you, but the next you."

The sound again, inauspicious, silly, almost: thump thump thump…

And the corresponding BOOM BOOM BOOM, a god's fist pounding the roof. Cracks appeared in the ceiling, dust shaking free, raining down, stone fragments pattering around my feet. The tar drying up, shriveling, disappearing.

The Observatory tilted slowly. Deep, outraged groaning as the floor developed its own spiderweb of cracks.

The tar blew away from Schmendrick and her babies in my arms, and they gasped. The children were hairless pink shriveled things with a dusting of fur. Tufted like baby ducklings. One was orange, the other white. They both shrieked like steam whistles.

I hunched over, covering Schmendrick and her children. Stones and bent pipes rained against my back. I went for the doorway, found Husband newly free of the tar. The other Cazadors joined us. We ran.

And didn't make it. Thump thump thump, went that distant horror, that nightmare weapon, the Mark 22 drone, Harrigan had called it. And the explosions hit.

The Observatory tilted, the floor cracked, the ceiling itself burst, letting in blazing sun against a heartbreakingly beautiful blue sky. Flowers and vines cascaded in, showering us with the prosperity and beauty Gary and his people had worked so hard to grow.

The huge sculpted shards of the dome fell. Tons of stone, coming for us. I covered my friends, my family, gathering them to my chest, coating them with blood from my new wounds....

And found myself in hot darkness. The sounds of destruction were muffled, blunted. A distant dream. The noise slowed and ceased. The sounds of our panting were louder by far than the wreckage outside.

Outside? Outside of what?

Husband spoke in Day Cazador: are you well my heart?

Schmendrick: We are well my heart.

Darkness. Warm Darkness.

I finally switched to Mandivision. There were the new kids: two souls, fluffy, terrified but becoming less so. Two more souls, far more developed: Schendrick and Husband.

And we were surrounded by another soul. A new one; it felt brand-new. It wrapped us, protected us in something solid, iron, impenetrable, warm. An organic surface, smooth and ridged against my fingers. A bulletproof hug.

Spoke to us in a voice I didn't recognize: "Okay so…You guys ever see The Thing? The John Carpenter version?"

And then I did recognize her. "No."

"Ig-nant," she said.

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