I couldn’t shake the ongoing feeling that one of them was going to do something while my back was turned. In another situation, I would have wanted to fly around the periphery, so all of them were in my field of view, but too many of us were doing that, and it just gave them free reign to move around.

“Hey!”

I winced as I heard the voice.

Situations like this mandated compromise. Like fighting on the same battlefield as Empire Eighty-Eight against Leviathan, I had to fight beside someone who had sold me out to the person who scared me the most.

Chris was standing on a ruined building. He’d altered his form some, and looked ape-like. The coat that had barely fit him before was now straining around his arms. Smaller arms stuck out near his nipples, working with a syringe.

“You’re not jabbing me with that,” I said.

“I know,” he said. “But I want you to jab her with it.”

He pointed.

Her.

One of his giants lurked near the back. Waif-thin, with long, pale hair, her skin a color and texture I associated with newborns, vaguely bruised, too red in spots, not yet exposed to the elements. Her eyes were penetrating as they watched what was going on, her mouth agape, like it would be better paired with a vacant stare. She wore what looked like a scarf and a full-body sheath of dead skin that extended from armpit to knee, with long whiskery hairs extending from parts of it.

I floated closer to Chris, watching. As the Ashen Titan ignited a tract of her ash once again, I put myself between her and Chris, so he could work in peace.

His syringe looked like it had a combination lock, with five dials lined up, each with a set of numbers. He was dialing in a specific code, while the contents bubbled violently.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Does it matter?”

“When you might be putting others in the line of fire, or if she might activate and take over my senses, it might.”

“It’s an autonomic piloting drive. They’re instructions she’ll obey until they wear off, at which point she retreats to the last place she found me. Failing that, she retreats to her birthplace. Instructions are to activate her power. She’ll affect everyone in range—”

“Uh, no.”

“—but there won’t be any effects. Subtle hallucinations, if any, unless the target is taller than she is. The other giants are programmed to not care.”

“What happens if you pull the kill switch later?” I asked.

“Same thing as if I pulled it right now!” he raised his voice, clearly annoyed. “If I wanted to fuck everyone over, I would have done it!”

Sveta landed on a nearby bit of building, coiling up her arm. She watched us, wary.