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Sophie had an idea, one that was going to make Cassie really happy. The thing inside the crate was a hive of those worms, feeding on flesh and bursting out of its pores. The creature they were inside was well and truly dead. The only problem was that one, those things could technically kill her, and two—as she looked around at the bloody puddles on the floor—her skin started to itch. Sophie scratched her neck and winced. She found blood under her fingernails. Rogue and Surge were staring at her, silent, lips thin and eyes unblinking. She dropped her hand and let her hair fall over her neck as she rolled her shoulders. Alright, she thought. First thing's first—get this out of here.

She might not have found any guns of use apart from a couple of assault rifles, but what else was in these crates? Were they all just alien corpses? Gold-Star's rumbling, rational voice echoed through her head: don't open them, keep them shut, and get them transported. The superhero inside of her was louder, more pushy, because she found herself standing in front of another black crate, wedging her fingers under the lid and forcing it wide open.

She was staring at a bunch of silver orbs. No dials. No seams in the metal. Perfectly round and stupidly heavy when she picked one up and bounced it on her palm. She frowned and turned it over, trying to rattle it, trying to pry it open. Sophie almost thought about licking it when it began buzzing on her palm, pulsating softly.

"Put it down," Surge said. Everyone apparently had the same idea to stand back. "It could be dangerous."

Sophie shrugged. "if it blows up, I'm pretty sure my skin's thick enough to tank it."

"The rest of us can't just 'tank' an explosion," Surge hissed.

"It might be alien tech," Rogue said quietly, eyeing the ball on her palm. "Which feels weird coming out of my mouth, because my older brother always said aliens weren't real—eat your heart out, Vance." He tensed his jaw when the pulsating turned into soft humming. "S—uh, Tempest. Disable that thing before it goes off, will you?"

"For a bunch of superheroes, you guys sure do get jittery," Sophie muttered. She turned it over again and shook it beside her ear. Nothing. She tapped her knuckles against it, waiting for something to start happening.

And something did happen—it started hovering just over her palm. Silent. Motionless. Just…there.

Sophie stepped back. It followed her, always a few inches away, always trailing after her.

"What the hell?" she whispered. She waved her hand. It moved from side-to-side.

Then she grinned.

Ha! Look at that thing. She flicked her hand to the right. The metal ball darted across the room and went straight through the concrete. She blinked and stared at the hole in the several inches worth of concrete, going so deep it was like someone had simply just made it vanish. Sophie waved her hand again. A few seconds later, the ball came whizzing back and smacked into her open palm like a fastball from a major league pitcher. She quietly whistled.

"Whatever it is," she said, looking at the rest of them. "I'm definitely keeping this one."

"Nothing in this room should be 'kept'," Surge said, her voice hard. "Not by you."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"The only reason you're here is because you were sent here, right?" Surge said. "You don't have any of your own agency. Nobody's seen you in New Olympus for months. Suddenly here you are, looking just for this."

Sophie's mouth went bitter, but she played off a dry, short chuckle. "I've got my own agency, thanks."

"Right," Surge muttered.

"You know—"

Witch-Girl groaned awake and collapsed against a metal table, taking several files and handguns with her on her way back onto the ground. She picked herself up, holding her head and adjusting her skewed witch's hat. The second she was on her feet, she was staring at the corpse in the crate. She blinked once. Twice. Then they widened so large Sophie thought her eyes would fall out of her skull. She stumbled backward and swallowed puke.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING?" she yelled. Shoulders rising. Chest heaving. "Is— Is that an—"

"Alien?" Sophie said. "Probably. It's dead, though. So it's kinda lack-luster, you know?"

"There's an alien inside of a crate, what's lack-luster about that!" she snapped.

"You said a word backward and turned a group of people into puddles, and this is what gets you scared? You can literally do magic."

"Magic makes sense," she breathes, licking her dry lips. She points at the crate. "That doesn't!"

Saber shook her head, making her ears flop. They all looked at her. She was leaning over the crate, nose twitching.

"Sabe?" Rogue said quietly. "What is it?"

She leaned deeper into the crate, then breathed in deeply. She froze, then shot backward, knocking a table against a wall and toppling another metal shelf. She spat, crouched, and bared jagged white teeth at the large box as she snarled.

Five people were left alive in the room right now, including Sophie.

She just couldn't understand why she could hear a sixth heartbeat. Or…something close to it.

It was skittish and quick. So rapid it sounded like a beating snare drum. Sophie looked around the room, wondering if one of them was tapping against the tables or floors or walls. Witch-Girl was stiff, holding herself. Surge was backing away from the box, now beside a snarling Saber. Rogue was the only one who hadn't moved. He stood there, staring at the box, chewing on his tongue as he seemingly tried to work something out. She could almost see the gears grinding in his head. For a second, she thought it was the sound of someone's chattering teeth.

The ball in her palm got warmer and warmer—suddenly so hot that she dropped it. Metal kissed concrete. Both hissed and spat, making smoke rise and pasty stew of the stone at her feet. And then the alien sat upright.

It blinked slowly, eyelids gliding over the yellow orbs inside of its elongated skull. Its bones crackled and popped as it grabbed the edge of the crate and kept itself stable. Clicking and grinding came out of its strange, wide mouth, and not a single person, not a single muscle, so much as twitched. None of them breathed. Barely any of them even blinked. Sophie almost forgot how to when the alien slowly turned its head and stared dead at her. She almost saw her reflection in its eyes. They glowed softly, almost like Olympia's. Just whole. Just more yellow. Like she was staring into something weaker, less bright, and a lot more flickering. The alien tilted its long head at her.

Witch-Girl was shaking so hard that she was making the table behind her rattle. Sophie shot her a look.

"Arkathian," a voice said in her mind. Sophie nearly jumped. She spun around, now breathing hard as the thing in the crate took an agonizing amount of time standing up. The sick, festering wounds filled with worms inside of it were healing. The worms were either shriveling, going gray and littering the inside of the box, or they slipped back underneath its tepid silvery flesh like insects burrowing back into their colonies. It…smiled at her. She thought it might've smiled at her. Its thin lips pulled back, showing off a gummy mouth filled with tiny, blunt teeth. Sophie looked around. The others were staring straight at her, now several meters away. "You must be the mighty Olympia we hear so much about." It put up a three-fingered hand and placed it on its chest. "Thank you for allowing us onto your planet. The travel was brutal. Deadly, even. Not all of us have made it." It looked around. Only a handful more crates like the one it stood inside were in the room. "But enough of us to speak our—"

"Get out of my fucking head, man!" she snapped. The alien startled. Sophie made a fist. "Now!"

If there was one thing she hated, it was the poking and prodding that all these fucking telepaths did inside of her skull. Yes, it was necessary, but yes, she also hated how it felt like fingers groping through her brain and her body and making it impossible for her to move because every inch of her body had seized with ice-cold realization.

She might be a clone, she might be artificial flesh and blood—that didn't mean she was some tool. Some thing that people could speak to and access however they wanted. It was different with Cassie.

Not with whatever the hell that thing was.

The alien put up both its hands. "No, no! I do not wish any harm on you. It is just much easier for me to conversate with you this way. I cannot speak your Earth languages very well, despite my best efforts. Forgive me."

"Soph," Rogue said. "Soph, what the hell is it saying?"

"It's in her head," Witch-Girl whispered. She clamped her hands over her ears. "I can hear it too!"

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"What?" Sophie said.

"It's just…just saying things. I can't understand… I don't… What the hell is it even saying?"

"Is your friend right of mind, Olympia?" the alien asked her. "She seems to be perturbed by something."

"Yeah, I can think of a lot of fuckin' things that might be spooking her right now," Sophie muttered.

The alien frowned. Or tried to. Its lips simply pulled into a thin line. "Is my appearance unappealing?"

"You're an alien!" Sophie said. "Everything about you is unappealing! Oh, man, you are so going inside of an operating room. I hope you don't mind getting cut open and studied, dude, because that's what's gonna happen."

The alien tilted its head again. "I don't seem to understand. We were told you would be understanding."

"Understanding?" she loudly repeated. "Of, what, some alien invasion? Some galactic trafficking ring?"

"Of our refuge," the alien whispered, its words echoing inside of her head. Ice pulsed through her brain. Sophie gasped and clamped her hands against her temples, stabbing her fingernails into her scalp. And then the ice was gone, and so was the pain, and all that was left was a mound of husks in front of her. Sophie stumbled backward, kicking up scarlet dust. She looked around, head swiveling. The sky is burning. The air stank of something rotten and hot, like burning bodies and decaying hope. Sour and rancid and clinging to the hot gusts of wind that skimmed over the red soil. Sophie swallowed, heartbeat fast. The bodies were all the same—tiny, gray, and slaughtered. Guts torn open. Bodies torn in half. Some burnt. Some so brutalized they were nothing but liquified guts pouring down the mound of bodies. She staggered back, put a hand to her mouth. A gust of wind shoved against her back, throwing scarlet dust across the back of her neck. A shadow loomed over her. Large. Silent. It felt…it felt like her. Like Olympia. But worse. So much worse. Something primal inside of her curled up and shrank and died. Sophie looked up at the burning sky, casting her eyes into the hellish glare of light above. Golden eyes stared down at her. Their face a shadow lit by distant fires. Their gold and white gear smeared with blood and dust and grit. Their cape snapped in the wind, golden, long, like some kind of robe. Their golden eyes narrowed.

Sophie stared at living certain death, paralyzed.

Until the cold in her brain subsided, and she was suddenly back inside the smuggler's tiny room.

She gasped and collapsed onto her hands and knees, coughing up saliva so hard that it hurt. Rogue got to her side, put an arm around her shoulder and said something to her. She couldn't hear it. All she could hear was the sound of screaming. Of this distant roar of agony that flew across that barren red wasteland. And the gore. And the blood. And the rich stink of fire and destruction that now clung to her nose and stuck to the back of her dry throat.

"You…" She dragged the back of her hand across her mouth and looked up at it, hair falling over her eyes. Silence filled the room. So heavy it felt intrusive. "You are not Olympia. Oh. my. Oh my." The alien's chest was expanding and contracting. It looked around, its pale skin changing color to something glossier and lighter. The others tensed. Saber extended her claws. Surge drew the sword off her back, electricity quietly crackling along the blade. The air stank of sweat and blood and ozone, a blend of smells that made Sophie want to vomit. The alien climbed out of the crate. Fell to the floor. Its weak legs and arms barely made sure it could get itself up. So it crawled. It crawled slowly, it crawled with trembling arms, dragging its gut along the ground and leaving a trail of slime or— or sweat or whatever it was secreting against the floor until it reached another one of the wooden crates.

"What's it doing?" Rogue asked her.

Sophie shrugged off his arm and shakily stood up, her brain still spiked with agony. "Hey."

The alien paused, then looked behind it. Its bony fingers were hooked onto the crate, almost desperate.

"Was… was all of that real?" she whispered. "Was that the Empire?"

"Where is the real Olympia?" it asked her. Its voice quaked inside her skull.

"Sophie," Rogue said.

She stepped forward. It pressed itself against the wooden crate and made a noise, a shaky, high-pitched noise that fluttered out of its throat. Fear. Worry. It smelt the same exact way criminals always smelt when she found them. Except this was raw. Worse. So pungent it filled her lungs. The alien violently shook as it stared at Sophie.

"Was that real?" she repeated, her voice quiet. "Was…was that you, staring up at him?"

Silence. Long, dead silence.

"Sophie," Rogue said behind her, almost through his teeth. "What's going on?"

"It's scared," Witch-Girl whispered. She was staring at the alien, hands still pressed to her ears, fingernails almost burrowing into the side of her skull. She was breathing slower, more shallow. "It…it wants something."

"Someone," Sophie corrected. "It wants Olympia."

"What?" Surge said. "Why?"

"Where is Ry'ee Addams?" it said, its voice now so thick with emotion it almost bled into her. She felt like crying. She felt like her chest was being grabbed and squeezed. She grabbed her chest, feeling her heartbeat slowly quicken with anxiety. Not hers. The alien was bleeding it. "She alone would understand our need for salvation."

"As far as I know, Rylee Addams is dead." The alien froze. Sophie tensed her jaw. "Gayne might have—"

Choking emotion swept through her body, so strong it felt like she'd just been punched in the gut. Sophie doubled over, clutching her ribs as the alien wailed, clawing against the wooden crate and screeching with agony.

"No! No! She is not dead. She cannot be dead!" Its voice rang inside her skull, making thick paste of her thoughts. Sophie gritted her teeth, tried to weather the storm of pain in her head. "She was destined to save us! She was— Oh. Oh, my." The alien moaned. The steel silver balls glowed with worse heat, making the air stink of smoke.

"Sophie, Sophie!" Rouge yelled, grabbing her arm before she fell. He looked at the alien, then her.

Witch-Girl moaned and doubled over, staggering against the metal work bench.

She stretched her hand out toward the alien, fingers splayed, air quaking.

Before she could make a fist out of her hand, Sophie grabbed her wrist, stopping her. They stared at one another. Jaws locked, teeth clenched. The air around her hand shuddered with the kind of energy and force that nearly plucked the fingernails out of Sophie's hand. She didn't want to snap her arm. She would snap her arm.

She counted five seconds, and Witch-Girl dropped her arm on two.

The air stopped quaking. Silence filled the room. Almost.

The alien quietly shuddered and moaned, making that terrible shrill sound.

Sophie slowly straightened, sweat on her brow that slid down her neck. She rolled her shoulders. Licked her lips. Swallowed. Felt sweat pool in the small of her back. She stared at the alien, then slowly walked toward it.

Surge hadn't put away her sword. Arcs of hot, flashing electricity curled around the blade.

Sophie ignored the hum of energy and stood over the alien, the katana casting pale blue light around her, throwing her shadow across the floor. The alien stared at her. She stared down. It curled in on itself, shaking hard.

Her fists were so tight that blood seeped between her fingers from her cut open palm.

Sophie shut her eyes, and very slowly let out a deep sigh. Her stomach unfurled. Her shoulders relaxed.

And she reached out her hand to the alien on the floor.

It stared at her fingers, then at Sophie.

"C'mon," she said. "Get up."

"But you are not—"

"There's people on their way here," she said, and that was dead true—boots and feet were hitting the ground above them, maybe out of commotion, maybe because someone wanted a piece of Lower Olympus' rotting pie. Either way, she wasn't gonna let them get their hands on something that the government would dearly love to get a hold on. This thing, whatever it was, had answers to a lot of their big questions—so congratulations to E.T., because from the moment it curled its fingers around her hand and she helped it up, it was now property of the United States government. It just didn't know it yet. First, though, she'd need to get this thing out of here, as well as the rest of this shit. The wrong people get their hands on this stuff, and a whole new war in Lower Olympus sparks, or a new wave of sicknesses, or deaths, or an entirely new faction that wanted to crack the crumbling foundation.

"What are you doing?" it asked her. "Will…will you assist me?"

"I'll do you one better and save your life right now," she said. "Oh, and the name's Sophie. Not Rylee."

The alien tilted its head, silent for a moment. "So…phie. Yes. You are her sister, then?"

"Sure," she muttered. "Something like that."

The alien smiled. Thin. Odd. A little skin-crawling. "Wonderful! I am truly in the presence of heroes!"

"Sophie, I'm glad you're making friends, but we need to start hauling ass," Rogue said.

"Yep," she sighed, and pulled out her phone. "I've got this. You guys run."

"I'm not leaving you here with that thing."

She paused, thumb hovering over a contact. "Since when do you care what I hang out with?"

He got closer to her. "Since I don't want people on the team getting hurt."

She waved her hand. "He won't hurt me."

"But—"

"I'm bulletproof, and I don't think you are," she said. "I can handle whoever's coming. Just get out of here, and I'll meet up with you guys later, alright? There's this shut down diner near WaterWay. I'll be there at midnight."

Surge sheathed her sword and left without asking, almost glad to get out of there. Saber glanced one way, then the other, staring at Sophie and the alien. Her ears flicked. She nodded once. Then ran after Surge. Witch-Girl was staring at the alien, still so freaked out that she was skirting around benches and shelves until she could sprint.

Rouge was left standing beside her, jaw tense, brows pinched.

The sound of maniacs looking for a quick grab was getting closer and closer by the second.

"Don't get yourself hurt," he said quietly. "I watch kids like us die all the time down here. Adults kill them. Sometimes rape them. It's…bad here, Sophie. Really bad. They don't care how old we are, or who we are—some of these guys only care about whatever can get them to the next day, because nobody knows when tomorrow is gonna be Earth's last." He got closer. He was a little taller, so she had to slightly look up at him. "You're new down here, so I'll tell you this about the L.O: it doesn't take it easy on anyone. It doesn't hand out lucky breaks. If it can make Olympia bleed, then it can definitely kill you." She opened her mouth to argue. He handed her a leather wrist band. "Keep that. Double tap it to let us know you're Ok. It's got a tracker in it, too. Place it next to any computer, and you'll be able to connect to it and figure out where we all are." More shouting. A gun went off, a soft pop that rang loud and violent down the hallway. The alien made a sound and stepped back. Rogue gently punched her shoulder. "Just remember: you stay alive in Lower Olympus with people around you. You die on your own. Quickly. Besides, we're probably the only people who've got the internet now, and I know a Hero Smasher III player when I see one."

Sophie smiled a little. "Who do you main?"

Rogue walked backward as a horde of men came spilling down the corridor. "Shrike, obviously. You?"

She hated to admit it, but…

"Lemme guess," he said, stopping just before they piled into the room. "Olympia?"

Sophie snorted, but didn't say anything else.

Besides, when he unclipped something metal off his belt and threw it against the floor, he was gone in a flash of blaring light and smoke. Impressive, she thought, as the gang of thugs spewed inside. Not amazing, though.

She just met an alien today—a trick like that wasn't as cool as it might have been an hour ago.

Sophie dialed a number and put the phone to her ear. "Yo, old man. I need your help. Found something."

Gold-Star grunted on the other side. "How important?"

"Very, very important," she said, then glared at the men in front of her. "Get down here quick."

"Affirm," he said. "And we need to have a talk about keeping your line open."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," she said, then got a bullet through her phone for her troubles.

Sophie stared at the hole dead in the middle of her screen, then glared at the fucker who just shot the bullet. Gun still smoking. Eyes wild. Fingernails dirty and teeth yellow. He reeked of piss and a foul drug cocktail.

"Hide behind something," she told the alien. "Bodies are about to start flying."

"You have the ability to induce flight in others?"

"Sure," Sophie said, grinning this time. "Something like that."

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