Days kind of blurred together for me, sitting alone in that dark room. I couldn't be sure how long it had been since I last left. That morning, the elevator opened and Ty stepped in with a purposeful look.

“Feel like saving a life today?”

I was a bit taken aback by the question. After my chaotic first few days here, he definitely had some idea of what I was capable of. I'm not sure where he got the idea I was some kind of hero.

“I don't have time to explain. We need you. Please?”

A few things were running through my head at that point; things that could go wrong, things that could go right. Something stuck out in my mind though, something about the way he said “we need you”. I could barely recall a time in my life when I felt like anybody really needed me. But if he was serious...

I stood up and nodded. I had to at least try, for the sake of whoever we were saving. Maybe for my sake too.

–

Minutes later, the twins and I were riding across the desert in the ship. With the hatch folded completely open, the ship functioned as a kind of number-8-shaped hover-car, whizzing along on electromagnets and god knows what else. It wasn't exactly aerodynamic, but seemed to do the job.

The boys sat up front in the cockpit. I sat in the back half. My overall look had evolved quite a bit with Deejay's additions. I was outfitted with a set of welding goggles and a brown knitted poncho, the hood pulled up over my head to further shield my face from the sun. I'm not sure what you'd call this style, but it was functional. It probably wouldn't make much of a difference, but I was willing to try at least.

“How are you holding up back there?” Ty asked.

I gave him a thumbs-up, not knowing any gestures for “I'm confused and terrified, but let's do this.”

“So far, so good.” He said to Deejay. “The poncho was a cool idea.”

“Yeah, the welding goggles seemed like a given, but I figured a little more cover might make this easier on her too. So, poncho.”

“Where'd you get that thing anyway?”

“Analucia. She makes a sweet Jayne hat too, but I thought that might throw the whole look off.”

We were approaching the spot on the map. In the distance, we could just make out a young black man in a white tank-top and jeans, presumably Marc, wandering around what looked like the ruins of a small town. Half-demolished wooden structures dotted the land all around him. From his posture, he looked like he'd been running and was trying to catch his breath. Deejay shouted to him.

“Marc! Over here!”

Marc easily spotted us as we sped toward him, kicking up huge clouds of sand in our wake. He waved frantically. Just then, a few feet behind him, the sand started rising up from the ground, taking vaguely humanoid shapes.

“Oh crap! Look out behind you!”

Marc looked over his shoulder and screamed. He broke into a run straight toward the ship, but suddenly tripped and fell. A hand emerging from the sand caught him around the ankle and held him tight. He screamed in pain. From what I've heard, those things can eat through human skin like acid.

Ty drew a gun from a shoulder holster under his jacket. It wasn't a normal pistol. From the metal prongs on the front, I initially mistook it for some kind of stun gun.

“Dammit,” he said. “We're out of range. Go faster.”

“I'm trying! Marc! Try to fight them off! A good punch or kick might slow them down if they don't dissolve your flesh first!”

Marc tried desperately to fight off the creature grabbing his leg, just as another lumbered toward him. It was around then my vision started getting hazy, and I thought I heard a low growling.

“We're not gonna make it in time,” Ty worried aloud.

“Don't say that. We can still-”

I was suddenly airborne. It felt like the whole ship had just dropped out from under me. It took me a moment to realize what happened. I had jumped; about a hundred feet in the air, no less.

Well, I thought, that's new.

“Woah!” Deejay exclaimed far below.

I was hurtling through the air, straight toward the mob of creatures surrounding Marc. I wasn't sure what spurred this sudden decisive action, but I didn't question it. It was becoming rare for my body and mind to be this in sync, both wanting the same thing. I let go, trusting my body to handle the rest.

My flight path felt like it was being guided. I came down perfectly on the drifter lunging at Marc, crushing it underfoot like an over-sized sand castle. I turned my gaze toward the one clutching his ankle; my foot moved on its own to stomp the creature's head into oblivion. Marc laid there dumbfounded as I started engaging the growing horde that was closing in on us.

“Marc, come on!” Ty shouted.

The ship was getting closer to us, but not fast enough. Drifters kept rising from the sand by the dozens, blocking our path to escape. On the ship, Ty and Deejay drew their guns and opened fire on the crowd. Arcs of electricity cracked through the air, striking and subduing several of the creatures, but there were too many of them for their weapons to make a difference. The circle of lumbering sandy bodies was closing around us.

Between frenzied punches and kicks, I focused on Marc, and then on the ship, urging my body to comply. Eventually, it relented. As the crowd closed in, I grabbed Marc roughly by his belt and shirt collar, spun around like a hammer thrower and hurled him into the air toward the ship.

Deejay grabbed the ship's controls and steered hard to the side, spinning the ship at just the right angle for Marc to drop straight into the back seat like a fly ball into a catcher's glove. Deejay pulled back, lifting the ship higher off the ground and circling over the crowd. Ty moved to the back to check on Marc.

“You okay?” he asked, looking Marc over.

“M-my leg...”

Ty cracked open a first aid kit, pulled out some ointment and bandages, and hastily applied them to the seared skin on Marc's ankle.

“You're fine. We'll get you fixed up when we get back.”

Down on the ground, I was back to fighting the mob of drifters, which was now focused squarely on me. As brutal and relentless as my movements were, there were still far too many of them.

“Jay, we got him!” Ty shouted. “Let's go!”

I didn't acknowledge him. I kept fighting, now consciously leaning into every furious attack. I never really learned how to fight before. There was no style or technique to any of my attacks, just raw animal instinct. And dammit, it felt good. Heads disintegrated as my fists smashed through them. Bodies crumbled underfoot. My clutching hands grabbed at arms and legs and easily ripped them off, battering incoming attackers with their own parts until they crumbled away as well. And yet I was still being overwhelmed.

“Jay, we have to go now!”

He was right. I could have leaped out of there right then and escaped. Maybe. My body wouldn't answer me. I wasn't sure anymore I even wanted it to. The crowd kept growing even as I kept cutting them down. Ty kept zapping random drifters out of the crowd, but was making even less progress than I was.

“Damn.”

Deejay steered the ship in closer hoping to pull me out, but by that point I couldn't even reach up to grab on. I was being completely engulfed by writhing bodies. My goggles were totally covered by some arm or torso of one of them. Something was wrapped around my face mask, making breathing more difficult. They kept grabbing and clawing at me from all angles, and I could feel bits of my clothes ripping, but that was about all the damage they could do.

“On the bright side, I was right,” Deejay said not-so-helpfully. “They're not eating her. Or they're having a hard time, anyway.”

Ty shrugged. “Great, she's immune. Doesn't help her much if they suffocate her. What now?”

“Hang on, I'm thinking...” His eyes darted around the ship's cockpit before settling on Ty's gun. “Got it! Here, give me your arc pistol.”

Ty obliged. Deejay started disassembling the weapon, and doing the same to his.

“If I combine the juice from both battery packs and completely discharge them all in one shot, the total current ought to be enough to fry the whole lot of them.”

As he worked frantically, another solution was coming. The fury inside me churned restlessly under the weight of the drifter mob. I could feel an unnatural pulsing in my red eye, like a second heartbeat inside my skull. The guys on the ship looked around in confusion as the light seemed to drain from the environment around them, turning the landscape a murky black and gray.

The bodies covering my eyes suddenly popped and dissolved as a black void appeared right in front of me, like a rift had been torn into the fabric of reality. My hand plunged into the rift and came back out clutching a huge black sword. It looked like it had been carved out of a single piece of onyx, and the blade had a row of strange symbols cut into its side.

Light and color returned abruptly to the surrounding area as the rift suddenly snapped shut and vanished. My hands gripped the hilt of the sword, and my body whirled around cutting the drifters to pieces with two mighty slashes. As they crumpled and fell, I jumped clear of the mob and turned back to look at my handiwork.

Deejay dropped what he was doing, dumbfounded. “...Or I guess she could just do whatever that was.”

“Did you know she could do that?” Marc asked Ty, looking very confused.

“No. This is new.”

Welcome to the club, guys. We're all learning a lot about me today.

The writhing mob of drifters shifted and moved erratically. They weren't done yet. The wrecked and dissolving bodies started sliding into each other and forming new shapes. I felt like running, but my body stood still and watched. Deejay steered the ship around behind me and lowered it to the ground.

“Jay, come on!” Ty shouted. “They're not going to stop. Just leave them!”

The drifter bodies bent and molded together like clay in a sculptor's hands. Slowly, they were all merging into one gigantic clump, and it was taking shape.

“Jay!”

The mass continued to grow, molding itself upward into a colossal humanoid shape, but with an undersized head and enormous ape-like arms. At its full height it stood maybe fifty feet tall. Its hollow eye sockets glared down at me. I glared back up at it, brandishing the strange sword that was apparently mine now. Deejay steered the ship into a better fleeing position.

“Woah,” he said, eyeing the beast nervously. “They've learned some new tricks too.”

“Jay, whatever you're thinking of doing, forget it. We have to run for it.”

Ty was still pleading with me to flee. I turned back toward him. Even through the goggles, he could see the unearthly red glow radiating from my eye. I turned back toward the drifter behemoth, hoping he would understand. I wasn't done yet. For whatever reason, my body needed this.

As the giant drifter and I stared each other down, a bloodcurdling guttural roar filled the air. I'm still not sure which one of us it came from.

“What the hell is going on?!” Marc exclaimed from the back seat. “How is any of this even possible?”

Ty shook his head. “You spend enough time with us, you'll learn to stop asking questions like that.”

“I have to admit, this is getting pretty ridiculous, even for us,” Deejay added.