Larry's eyes widened in panic. "What is it? What—"

"—Genneth… he mentioned something like this happening with Yuta and Geoffrey," Ibrahim explained. "Somehow, their memories had been re-written."

"How is that even possible?" Larry asked.

"At the time, Genneth was worried that the fungus was somehow altering the past. What if that's what's happening to you?"

"But &alon is the fungus!"

"At this point, anything's possible," Ibrahim said.

"What about the spirits?" Larry asked. "We can't leave them here with Letty. She's a demon!"

"I…" Biting his lip, Ibrahim looked up at a nearby lamppost. "I think I can use the lights to start harvesting the souls that Letty is holding captive. But, I think Letty is going to notice."

"She hasn't noticed us so far!" Larry said.

"Larry, you haven't experienced what it's like to have souls transferred in or out of you. I have. Trust me, it's not the kind of thing you could ignore."

"Then what do we do?"

While they'd been talking, day had turned to night and back to day again. As Ibrahim looked around, trying to think of a solution, he saw and heard a familiar car chase heading toward him.

He pointed at the oncoming cars. "There! Jonan is starting another loop." Ibrahim tugged Larry by the arm and set off in a sprint. "Come on!" he yelled. "Quickly!"

Ibrahim ran across the street. Larry followed behind, dashing onto the sidewalk right as the cars drove past.

"We'll catch him before he arrives at Letty's place!" Ibrahim said.

"But that's not close!" Larry said.

Ibrahim groaned. "You're telling me!"

He set off in a panicked run, hoping to make it in time. The experience was incredibly true to life, just as miserable as the real thing. His chest burned, his limbs ached, and then his sciatica decided to flare up and stab him in the ass.

Ibrahim would have fallen over had Larry not grabbed him by the arm.

"Doc!" Larry cried.

"I'm fine! I'm fine!" Ibrahim snapped, even though he really wasn't. "It's just my fucking sciatica!"

Larry and Ibrahim moved together in a three-legged limp for about a block and a half, until Dr. Rathpalla felt steady enough to trust his own legs. Somehow, despite the rampant sciatica, they managed to race down the driveway right as Jonan was pulling his car in.

Ibrahim leaned against the side of the car to steady himself. It was a lovely Holden 50, black as sin, and shining with pride. The metal was hot and dry against Dr. Rathpalla's sweaty hand. He grabbed the door handle and pulled it open at the same time as Jonan did the same from within.

Seeing Ibrahim's distress and non-Trenton skin coloration, Jonan yelped in alarm, hopped over the stick shift and scrambled out the door on the other side of the car. Turning around, he raised his hands to either side of his head and slowly stepped back, while looking left and right, as if searching for a weapon.

Off on the side street, the cars that had been chasing Dr. Derric zoomed by. Jonan's ploy had succeeded: they hadn't realized he'd driven onto Letty's property.

"Don't shoot!" Jonan yelled. "Don't shoot!"

Ibrahim pushed himself off the side of the car and staggered up to the hood. He propped himself up with a hand on the hood, the heat of the metal flowing up his palm.

"I don't have a gun," he said, panting for breath.

Scowling, Jonan lowered his arms and rushed up to the front of his car. "Then who the hell are you?" he asked. "Are you with Skoldrake?"

"Who?"

Instantly, the tension in Jonan's expression halved. He rested one of his hands on the roof of his car. "Steven Skoldrake," he said, chest rising in a deep breath. He pointed at the street. "He's the one who sent those two bloodhounds after me." He turned his gaze back to Ibrahim and Larry. "So…" Clearing his throat, Jonan stuck a finger down his collar and then put on a shit-eating grin. "You fine gentlemen wouldn't happen to have any cash on hand, would you? I'm suffering from that peculiar ailment people call not having enough money, and would really appreciate it if I could borrow some from you."

"No," Larry replied, flatly.

"Fuck." Jonan hissed, bunched his hand into a fist, stomped his shoes on the driveway's pavement, and then sighed. "Okay, then… why the hell are you here? No offense, but you don't look like you're cut out for repo man work." He pointed at Larry. "Well, he does, but… you catch my drift. So… who are you?"

"I am Dr. Ibrahim Rathpalla, and this is Larry." Ibrahim dusted off his coat. "But, more importantly," he pointed a finger, "you are Jonan Derric."

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Jonan's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "How'd you know my name? Did ya hack into my laptop?"

"You really don't recognize me, Doc?" Larry asked.

"I would remember meeting a giant with awful teeth," Jonan replied.

Larry glared.

Ibrahim sighed. His breathing was finally starting to calm, his lungs stopped feeling like they wanted to mount a jailbreak from his ribcage. "Listen," he said, "your name is Dr. Jonan Derric, you're—"

"Doctor?" Jonan asked.

"Shit." Ibrahim bit his lip, and then looked Jonan in the eyes. "Alright, what about Ani? Ani Lokanok? Do you remember her?"

Jonan's eyes glazed over for a moment, as if he was staring through fog, but then he shook his head. "Never heard of her." He straightened his jacket. "Listen, is this some kind of joke? You runnin' a con, or something?"

Larry groaned. "You're dead, we're wyrms, I'm probably dying, and none of this is real." He cut his hand through the air. "We're here to rescue you."

Jonan started stepping away from the car.

Ibrahim could almost taste his unease.

And then Larry glanced off to the side and muttered. "Oh fuck…"

Both Ibrahim and Jonan turned to see Letty walking out through her property's front door, wearing an outfit as ridiculous as the rest of her mind games. She wore a nearly black robe with leopard-fur-lined hems, and a matching hat, also leopard. The dark, round sunglasses were in constant protest with her cottage-cheese pale face.

Ibrahim didn't blame them. He wouldn't have wanted to be on her, either.

The space between Letty's wrists and sleeves was choked by jewelry, bracelets, and other baubles. It was like she was at a spa for snobs; all that was missing was the facial masque and some pretentious eye-cucumbers.

"Well well well," she said, resting one of her hands on her hip, "what do we have here? Wait," she pointed at Ibrahim with a grin, "I know you. You're one of Dr. Howle's medical gremlins, aren't you?"

"Okay," Jonan said, "now I really have no idea what's going on, and I don't like it!"

Glancing at Jonan, Letty raised her finger to her lips and shushed him.

"Shh…"

She smiled.

There was a slight sound of suction as Jonan's mouth sealed itself shut and disappeared. Staggering backward, he patted his vanished mouth while letting out a muted scream.

Letty turned her attention back to the two interlopers.

"Now, you two, be good little boys and tell me what you're doing inside my mind."

"I'm not going to let you keep holding these souls hostage, Letty," Ibrahim said. "You're torturing them."

Letty's back went stiff, making buttresses out of her arms as she grasped either side of her hips. "Yes," she said, "as is my right. It's not fair that they get off scot-free when I suffered so much. What's that platitude simpletons like to strut about? 'Be the change you want to see'. Well, I'm doing that. I'm bringing some long overdue justice to this dumpster fire of a world." She sneered at them. "I won't let anyone stand in my way. Least of all you."

Letty stuck out her hand. Immediately, a wave of force and pressure bore down on Ibrahim, forming a wall that pushed him back. The air in front of him fluoresced like plasma, rasping with heat, ready to burn through his clothes and carbonize his skin.

She was trying to crush him with her will.

It was a stupid move. You couldn't destroy a wyrm's consciousness that way. Ibrahim had discovered that during the Last Church's attack on the hospital, when he'd fused with one of Verune's cultists to incapacitate them.

Yes, wyrms could raise hell in one another's minds, but they couldn't do anything fatal.

As the tide of power threatened to overwhelm him, Ibrahim read its contours. Letty's attack was a manifestation of her thoughts, formed in accordance with the rules she'd made to govern this place. And though Dr. Rathpalla couldn't change those rules, he was free to operate within their terms. All he needed was an illustrative example to show him the trick to gaining access, such as Letty's attempt at murder.

At the end of the day, this was all in her head.

And that's my turf, you bitch, Ibrahim thought.

Whoever said psychiatry couldn't be badass?

Greg's Wyrmsoft program anchored users' powers in their will. But Letty's magic wasn't based on will. It was based on feeling. Emotion wafted off her almost as strongly as her strawberry perfume. She was attacking him with her anger and hate.

To survive, Ibrahim would have to fight fire with fire.

And so he did.

Ibrahim pushed back against the blindingly bright wave of energy. It was like stone and water, solid, let fluid. But while he pushed with his arms, the real force came from his resentment, which he channeled, distilled, like a fine liquor. He had loads of resentment. He couldn't have given it away fast enough. Obviously, there were the big ones: his anger at being made into a monster, his outrage at the suffering of the murdered billions. But there were so many other furies, some old and soft, others more recent, and all of them quaking through his heart like thunder.

The war that drove his family from their homeland. The assholes he grew up with who bullied him for sport. The people who said he didn't belong, and wouldn't, and couldn't. Even his own family, for looking down on his career path for not having made his life choices to optimize his income.

Ibrahim channeled it all into a current of his own. Plasma sprayed from his hands, crashing into Letty's energy wall.

Jonan screamed.

"What the fuck?!"

The two energies streamed together for a glorious moment before they embraced mutual annihilation, scattering a wispy shockwave that made everyone stagger back.

As the energies cleared, Ibrahim grinned. Letty did not look happy.

It was a start.

Letty's arms trembled as she shrieked with murderous intent.

No, actually, it was more than just a start: it was his next move.

Ms. Kathaldri was the spitting image of someone who wanted to tear Ibrahim limb from limb. It was frightful to behold, and Ibrahim channeled that fear, that desire to be anywhere other than here, locked up in Letty's mind.

She wasn't crazy, she was just sad and hateful. Ibrahim couldn't say for sure if she could have found happiness, but he was certain she never would as long as she never cared to try.

Thankfully, he did try.

Before Letty could even mount her second attack, Ibrahim channeled his desire to get away from her ASAP and teleported Jonan, Larry, and himself into Jonan's car. He was in the driver's seat, while Larry rode shotgun with Jonan in back.

Jonan screamed wordlessly through his missing mouth.

Dr. Rathpalla ignored him.

"Larry, it's emotion! It's feeling! That's how you use power here!"

Larry nodded. "Good to know!"

Conveniently, Jonan's key was still in the ignition. Ibrahim turned it and pulled the stick shift into reverse.

Beast and Queen, the engine purrs like a kitten.

Then he glanced at Letty, waved goodbye, and put the pedal to the metal. "See ya later, alligator," he said.

The kitten's purr turned into a tiger's roar as they drove down the driveway.

Lunging through the gap between the front and rear seats, Larry grabbed Jonan and brushed his finger across Jonan's face. Dr. Derric's flailing protests stopped once he realized his mouth was reforming.

He yelled: "Who are you people!?"

Letty snarled: "No!"

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