Kenzie brought up a projection. An image of herself, standing a few feet to her right. Like she had a slide projector going through slides, she brought up an alternate her, where her body was a silhouette. Her eyes slightly glowed, and the two antennae stabbed into those eyes and out through the back of her head, each one bent in what I could describe as spider legs as long as my forearms, if the hairs on a spider’s legs were their own circuits, transistors, and smaller antennae, thick and dense. Points along those legs glowed white, and the structures gave off their own wave of heat, which was visible in the air and more visible in the shadow the projection cast. As Kenzie turned her head, so did the projection.

Spooky, to see her with tools stabbing out the back of her head, but—

She brought up another. The antennae were shorter, sticking more out the top of her head. The points that glowed were different.

Another set. Antennae as long as my arms, but curled to stab back into the head.

And another, four antennae on this ‘slide’.

Then the final image. All ‘slides’ together, the silhouette crowned with ten antennae emerging from its head. Heat radiated off of it with waves that distorted the air, more intense than above any barbecue, and the individual lights blinked on and off along their mass. Blinking being the operative words for those particular orbs. The faint glow at her eyes overlapped to become an intense white that didn’t all line up perfectly, so it bled out, while casting its own heat shimmer.

And a few feet away, regular Kenzie, a slight smile on her face, still wearing her periwinkle blue duffel coat and winter hat, hair down as it had been arranged by Candy, a bit behind one ear, in the exact same stance. She wore the mask I’d given her. Eyeless, while the other figure had eight overlapping eyes, each pale and ghostly.

“I’ve got a project to get back to,” Kenzie said, in maybe the first instance of her being self-conscious that I could readily recall. She turned and the silhouette turned as well.

“No,” Rain said. “I think you need to cut back. Let’s go down to… half the number, to start.”

“But—”

“It’s a good idea,” Sveta said.