“Too bad. I could use the extra ammo.”

“Uhh, what about you?” Clockblocker asked Trophy Wife. “Your arm?”

She had some fingers that were pretty badly mangled, bending the wrong ways, broken in multiple places. One of her ears was missing.

“I don’t need anything. I regenerate slowly.” She indicated the trophy rack that was mounted on her back, there were bits of meat, gristle, one eyeball that wasn’t human, and two fingers attached to it. She touched a dead, dried, tailless lizard. “It’s not much, but I’m granting some benefits to everyone in this craft.”

“Wait, those things are real?” Finale asked. “Even those fingers?”

“A neurosurgeon’s fingers.”

“Urgggh, no, that’s so wrong, and gross, and creepy.”

“Those are fresh,” Christopher said. “You actually chopped off a neurosurgeon’s fingers in the last twenty-four hours?”

“He supplied me other fingers before.”

Finale put her hands over her ears.

“That’ll be enough, please,” Caryatid said.

“What’s going on with that guy?” Sidepiece asked.

“A drug addiction he picked up writing his own scrip before Gold Morning and a terrible debt he got after. I asked him if he wanted to give me a pinky finger or a hundred thousand New Dollars. He gave me the pinky. When people were packing up their things and evacuating the city, he knocked on my door. He wanted to ensure he didn’t go without, offered me everything he owned. I took two more fingers instead.”

“Barbaric,” I noted.

“He’s contributing more to stop the end of the world than the rest of them,” Trophy Wife said. “Quicker fingers and better hand-eye coordination for me and everyone around me.”

“A good share of them are down in the crystal landscape, preparing to bomb it again,” I told her. “I wouldn’t be so sure they’re not making an impact.”

The woman shrugged, fur collar rising and falling.

“This is depressing,” Withdrawal said, before abandoning the projected simulation. He retreated back to where Finale was.

Christopher approached, but he didn’t engage with the simulation. I watched his metallic eyes surveying the technology around him.

“It’s good to have you on board, Win,” Defiant said. Less authoritarian and stern than I’d heard him since we’d gotten on board.

“It’s not a complete me, but… sure. I feel like I’ve been away for a very long time, I returned to my hometown, and everything’s changed. Me included.”

“I have tools if you want to while away the remaining minutes.”

“Nah,” Christopher said. “Unless you’re trying to get rid of me.”

“No.”

The projection disappeared, and appeared in the passenger seat. Arms crossed, I looked over the headrest as it started shifting, showing movements. It looked like the Simurgh was at the Wardens’ new Headquarters for this exercise. The image divided, zooming into the headquarters to show the people within as dots. A lot of dots.

“Planning?” I asked.