Hey, young me, I thought. In my mind’s eye, I held onto the image of myself in the living room of Aunt Sarah’s house, sitting on the loveseat. Getting the talk. You dreamed about being a hero for what seemed like every moment of every day.

It never crossed your mind how cold and bitter it could be.

I was at a height above the tallest buildings, suspended in the air. Snow and wind whipped around me and my forcefield, and I positioned the gun I held to block the worst of it. Futile, when it seemed to change directions every three seconds.

Land was cracked, and from this height only darkness was visible in the cracks.

The sky was fractured. Other worlds visible through those fractures.

The people… if there were any down there, they were scattered, few, and desperate.

I didn’t imagine the fear.

The Simurgh was there in the distance, taking roost in the middle of a clearing, ringed by a crown-like circle of ruined and toppled buildings. It had been a park, once, but there was no grass, no water, there were no trees.

The tech in my eye changed settings without my requesting it. Tweaks to the night-vision, then a zoom-in, which combined with the wind to create a sensation closer to helplessly falling than anything I’d experienced to date, and that included having my flight or my ability to control my flight taken from me while I was a hundred feet above the ground. Mostly because the Simurgh was what I felt like I was plummeting toward.

A wing was folded around her upper body, but golden lines appeared and outlined shapes behind the wing.

The golden outlines turned red. Labels were traced out in print so small I shouldn’t have been able to read them.

Tinkertech. Machine Army.

She brought some with her.

Others were arriving, filtering in through portals.

I’d seen recreations of past Simurgh attacks. Lausanne, Paris, Canberra. Some were drawn from witness accounts, but the Paris one had been done by a member of the Suits. Until they were collectively taken down and dissemination was made illegal. Too much worry.

From seeing those recreations, though I’d never participated in a fight against the Simurgh, I knew she liked this kind of moment.

Except that was dangerous thinking. Applying human thought, personifying her. She didn’t ‘like’ anything. She didn’t get angry. She didn’t have hopes, dreams. Only cold intent.

Rewording: She had a tendency to position herself like this. Waiting for people to come to her, while she remained still.

Portals opened. Our ground troops arrived. Legend was in the air, healed from a recent injury, his face all closed up now, but for a single line of light blue. While mending he had tried to hold back the Machine Army after the Simurgh’s most recent visit.