Chapter 26

Kait's house was small and quaint. Odin wished he and Follower had something similar when he- His throat became a desert as he helped to carry in another bag of green things he didn't find appetizing. He wasn't in Follower anymore. No matter how many times he reminded himself he was in Odin he couldn't shake the feeling that he should be in Follower. Even though his new Host felt similar he was very different from Follower. No amount of modification would make this body the same. He stopped at the center island in the kitchen after setting the bag of food down.

Nothing would bring Follower back.

Freyja had taken it upon herself to remove the bags of cat food from her car and bring them in as well, setting them next to the ones Kait had bought for her cat colony. He wanted to protest but the offering seemed like a sensible idea.

He nearly jumped when she gently put her hand on his shoulder.

"I know you miss him. It's okay to mourn."

Odin shut his eyes and grit his teeth. "None of this should be happening. I shouldn't be here."

Her grip tightened somewhat. "If you need a minute to yourself that's fine, but I'm here for you. We're in this together."

She shouldn't be.

Freyja was his Spark.

He was supposed to kill and devour her, not ally himself with her to turn against his own people. She wasn't supposed to feel sympathy for him. She should hate him. Fear him at the very least.

You're not a bad guy, Freyja said over the Link. She pat his shoulder a couple times before removing her hand. Stay in here and rest. That was the last of the groceries. I'll figure out what's going on here. Aside from the two cats in this house I'm not seeing any signs of a colony anywhere.

Odin opened his eyes and turned quickly. "I can smell them. There are four inside and the property is certainly home to far more."

She nodded. "You coming?"

"Yes."

They were almost to the front door again when Kira-217 opened it and waved at the people outside to enter. "Come on, everyone. Get out of the heat. We need to talk."

"This is my house, Kira. Mittens and Sir Reginald Chickenfingers don't do well around this many people. It's why the Bros stay outside," Kait protested.

Kira-217 thought for a moment, her eyes looking up and moving back and forth as if she was listening to some unheard voice. "I guess the inside cats will just have to put up with company."

"But, wait!"

Freyja stepped forward, gently catching Kait's arm and whispered in her ear. "Go with it or we're all dead."

"What?" Kait asked.

"Oh, she's just being silly. It's not like we'll eradicate each and every one of you with high intensity charged particle cannons for knowing too much about the invasion. It was our idea to have Sam broadcast everything to his one point two million followers, after all," Kira-217 explained with a playful lit to her voice.

Freyja let go of Kait's arm and leaned to look out the front door far enough to see Sam still filming with his phone. "One point two million followers? Really?"

"I said I was a professional!" He shot back, clearly on the verge of tears.

"Please, everyone, come inside," Kira-217 instructed again.

It didn't take long for all six bikers, Freyja, Odin, Sam, and Kait to join Kira-217 in the home's small living room. Odin could still feel Sprinkles outside. The grunt's glee at chasing a grasshopper poured across the Link like delicious gravy over soft food. He was sure Kira-217 was monitoring the whole thing, inside and out of the house. If she chose to kill Sprinkles for stepping out of line then so be it.

"Now, let's turn this TV down a little," Kira-217 said.

Kait began frantically moving pillows from the small couch as she said, "Hold on, I'll find the remote. Give me a sec."

"No need. We got it," Kira-217 replied.

The daytime court show's volume went down and the room became eerily quiet. Distantly, the sound of paws digging in cat litter echoed from the other end of the house.

"Great. Now, the Commander already knows all of this, so it doesn't matter that they're not here yet. Sam, you've got a good shot of us, yes? Of course you do. We're watching your stream. You may want to get a stabilizer but you're phone's compensating pretty good for your shakes," she said.

"What the fuck is going on now?" Laurence said with a sneer.

Kira-217 looked up suddenly and the volume turned back up on the television just as the Breaking News Alert jingle concluded. A podium with United States flags behind it took up the center of the screen.

"Shit," she sneered.

"We come to you live as President Butcher is about to give an emergency press conference," a reporter said.

"You know what this is about?" Freyja asked.

Kira-217 shook her head. "Maybe. Two Seventeen's annoyed we got interrupted again. Chad used to always do that."

Odin recognized the pastey man with thin blonde hair that walked up to the podium. Two other Humans stood behind him, one looked positively ill and the other terribly constipated. The camera pulled back for long enough for two more Humans, dressed in black suits with ties and sunglasses, to be visible.

"I saw that Human naked on the back of a truck," he said.

"The guy that owns that truck's a dick. Always cuts us off on the highway," Laurence said. "He may have lost a tire or two under mysterious circumstances recently."

"My fellow Americans. I come to you today with dire news. Dire news. They told me not to use the 'D' word, but it really is. It really is dire news we're talking about. The big 'D.' Super scary shit is happening. But Pat Hogswalt at the Department of War is on it. He's got the best guys working on this right now and he'll tell you about that later but right now I'm here to tell you about the absolutely more dire news," President Butcher rambled.

One of the bikers crossed his hairy arms. "He gonna outlaw gays again? Piece of shit has my nephew scared as hell."

Freyja's surprised came through the Link. Evidently, she hadn't expected that from the bikers at all. It felt almost like Odin's own surprise that she didn't hate him.

"Now, this scary shit going on has got to stop. It's been happening for months and you've seen the news. You've seen it. They're eating dogs and cats. They're eating people. They've been all over the news. Exclusively in the United States. Just eating people."

Kira-217 took a step back. "They have not! They're not just in the United States. Why would he lie like that? Based on evidence of President Butcher's past behavior he is a compulsive liar and white nationalist. He's likely saying such things to make his supporters feel personally targeted."

"That's right. I'm talking about the big 'D' word here. Aliens. They're invading our great nation and must be stopped," President Butcher continued. "Paul Oswald here is gonna tell you more about how the War Department will take these things out. Right, Paul?"

"Yes, Mr. President," the man on the right of the screen said.

President Butcher was somewhat lead backward by the sickly looking man behind him so he'd move away from the podium. The constipated man took a step forward. Odin wasn't sure if his name was 'Pat Hogswalt' or 'Paul Oswald.'

"As the President said, we are being invaded by beings from another planet. At ten fifteen last night, NORAD detected a vessel en route to Earth. We are prepared to take it out with whatever means necessary. If these chicken shits think they stand a chance attacking us they're about to find out the hard way they've made a mistake. We're tough shit. We're hard. There's nothing they can do to hurt the United States of America," Constipated Man explained.

"That fuck's gonna nuke it," Freyja said. She turned to Kira-217. "Is he talking about the ship you mentioned?"

She nodded. "Probably. It's still a couple weeks out. We're surprised they were able to detect it."

"Probably got lucky," she replied.

"We're going to hit these fuckers hard and fast," Constipated Man continued. "Whatever these shits are they're going to regret crossing-"

He was cut off when one of the people in front of him split in half, shapeshifting into tens of dozens of tendrils. They grabbed the podium and man behind it. The second person in a suit pulled a weapon and began firing as two more tried to pull President Butcher from the stage, presumable to safety, until one of them also shifted, slicing the sick looking man's head off along with one of Butcher's arms. The screaming and gunfire were cut off as the image on the television changed to a reporter with a sheet-white face.

Kira-217 put her hands on her hips with a sigh. "I guess the cat's out of the bag."