Only three cop tanks then, three or four cops apiece. Magenta charged.

When she was old Yaya, she’d taken the adaptations for granted as automatic, but the Magenta side of her had always been problem-solving. Now the whole of her had to figure out these solutions.

The cops opened fired again, but layers of fat were already growing across her front, her sides, better shielding than any carapace.

One of the cops fumbled with his gun. “We’re just pissing it off!” he shouted.

Another cop patted her tank’s rooftop and then ducked behind the steering wheel.

Magenta’s front—could it be called a face anymore?—stretched a new mouth as wide as the nearest cop tank, baring teeth and tongue. “You’ve always pissed me off!” she roared.

The rifle shuddered out of the cop’s hands, and he began screaming. That she could think and speak was too much for him. She cut him off with a grasping limb and dragged his body into hers. Car-thick tentacles slung around the cop tanks’ back ends, cutting off any retreat, their little cops caught between barbed limbs and enormous teeth. She couldn’t pad the inside of her mouth with fat to stop the bullets from hurting, but now that she’d reached the cop tanks, their guns only had seconds to fire. She took her enemies and made them part of her.

“Just peanut butter,” she whispered.

Her attention turned away from cellular breakdown. No one liked to be conscious of their stomach at work, and her digestive system ran as systemic as her mind. Her cells shifted as adaptation demanded and inspiration allowed.

Mimicking and preserving old Yaya’s brain had been hard. Better now with full consciousness. Best with the brain she’d found behind glass. Mostly dead, but copied down to its minute details, its experience and emotions lived inside her, blooming greater wrath and vengeance than Magenta had ever known. ABP

wouldn’t destroy her again.

And if she could adapt to survive them, she could adapt to destroy them.

Love came naturally to her, but she could be inspired to the art of hatred.

She had only needed a muse.

The chop-chop rhythm of helicopter blades buzzed loud again, and then the awkward black bird erupted from around the skyscraper’s corner. Its door hung open, and a rifle nosed out alongside a red megaphone. The helicopter swung overhead, skirted the shattered cop tanks, and hovered a couple hundred feet away.

“Stand down!” a crackling voice shouted.

Magenta’s limbs curled around her. Bones were finding each other inside, demanding her mess of snakish spaghetti gather a more rigid form. Her orchard’s minds were used to some semblance of structure. She couldn’t deny them entirely.

“Betancourt!” the voice shouted again, somewhat warped as helicopter blades tilted forward. “Yolanda Betancourt!”

Magenta sneered up at them. “You wish.”

The helicopter’s windshield leaned down and became an angry black visor.

“Betancourt, stand down! Hands on your—”