It was a craft house, a bar where Humans were making a kind of liquor called Alien Hooch. "Try it try it," he shouted. "My god it's so good."

"How many have you had?"

"Two. They taste like fruit punch!"

"Well…you're awfully thin. Maybe slow down, okay?"

"You hate me, why do you hate me?" His face fell. "Oh yeah."

"I'm looking out for you." I did hate him, but let's be reasonable. I could hate lots of people equally, Todd was nothing special.

He lurched away, muttering about how unfair things were. I went to sit next to him. Todd needed looking after. And I was looking out for him. Why was I doing that?

Lux was bouncing under that huge hat. "I want some Alien Hooch. I want to get hammered!" She approached the Human male bartender, whose eyes stuck out like doorknobs.

"Holy…look at who showed up at my distillery!" He rang a brass bell mounted on the wall, DANG DANG. "It's Helen of Troy!"

"Not my name," she said. "What's Hooch?"

Lux was a new Human, but she was also good at dealing with them. A man would approach her, she'd say something, and the poor silly swain would laugh and leave her be. No hard feelings, apparently. I wondered if that was a built-in skill that came with the body she'd been put into.

"This place is a nest of nightmare monsters," Todd said into his tiny glass of Hooch. "The sooner we leave the better."

"What's keeping you from just making a phone call and ubering out of here, or whatever? I won't stop you. We'll be long gone by the time you can regroup to send your racists after us. Why not just leave?"

He flushed and looked longingly at Lux. Pretty subtle.

I'd failed a class on psychology once. I'd asked the professor: how do you get someone out of a cult? There was a lot of cult activity at the time, politically speaking; it was a volatile era. Not compared to everything that came afterwards, but it had seemed pretty wild.

The answer: change peer groups. Be nice. Don't accuse or blame. And, one assumed, don't beat the hell out of your cult victim in an effort to fix his dumb ass. Also don't take him hostage, that was probably a no-no.

I watched Todd as he perved helplessly on Lux. Could this guy be salvaged? And if I could do it, could I use him against the ones who'd tried to hurt me, hurt Lux, hurt those poor Pingsters, hurt…pretty much everything good?

Because despite everything he and his idiots had done, and had planned to do, I didn't like that I'd lost it. I wanted to make amends. I wanted to be better.

Well, better than Preston Covenant and his guys, anyway. And then rub their faces in my superiority.

A crowd of rowdy young women charged loudly into the bar, overwhelming it. They were all shapes and colors, brown, blue, purple and red, stripes and flickering color changes. They began drinking immediately. Lux asked if she could join them, and soon they were all bellowing and laughing.

A band made of four fuzzy, quick Cazadores brought out little instruments, set up amps on the stage. They were the size of turkeys, so the stage didn't have to be huge. The lead one, an orange striped specimen, shouted into her microphone: "Hellooo Tourist Winnie! We! Are! APOCALYPSE COW!"

The band immediately went into a kind of amped-up alien music, one with a very fast beat and vocals that I suspect were too high for Human hearing. It was vibrating in my skull, but I couldn't actually hear it.

Lux and her new friends began dancing. I looked over at Todd, who was like a morose Strider in the Prancing Pony by the window, glumly watching Lux have a good time.

She was offered the tiny microphone by the Cazador lead singer. She began growling a menacing song of her own, and the band more-or-less followed along:

Well I'm a human fly

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

I-I spell F-L-Y

I say "Bzz Bzz Bzz"

A-and it's just be-czzz

Her audience of drunk young ladies hollered for her. One of them approached me, flushed and grinning. Pale purple skin, lit occasionally by an anime lightning bolt that travelled under her safari clothes. White hair under that pith helmet.

"That girl with you guys?"

"Yes," Todd snarled.

"Only as long as she wants to be," I said.

The woman pointed at me. "Right answer. Are you her bodyguard today?"

I shrugged. "She's a new Human, you know what I mean? She was put into that body by people who wanted to hurt her. She got away and their camp is trashed."

"Oh, badass," the purple girl said. She clumsily pinched Todd's cheek. "No wonder you're so protective of her, my man."

Todd went pale.

"Give me a contact," she said. "If she wants to stay with us and have fun, you okay? I think everyone in my group is in love with her."

Todd scowled at this, causing her to laugh and pinch his cheek again. "We'll be nice to her, don't worry. Here's my contact token. Gimme yours. Anything I should know?"

I considered. "She plans on leaving that body, I think some PTSD is happening there, but she also wants to see the sights, if you know what I mean."

"Heh heh hehhhh," said the purple girl, and winked at Todd.

"The people who did this put a Rune on her," I said. "Upper left arm. Not her idea. Its keeping her soul quiet. Keeps her from doing Magic, pretty sure."

Purple girl looked terrifyingly grim. "Got it. That's a crime. A big one."

Todd was trying to disappear into himself.

Purple Girl, whose name turned out to be Adaobi, pointed out the window. "That's where we're staying. If she doesn't join you tonight, that's where she'll be. I'm a Winnie mahout, ask around, everyone knows me here."

"How do we know we can trust you?" Todd snarled. "And what's a Winnie mahout?"

"What a good protector you are," she said, and tousled his hair. She flounced off.

"This place is a nightmare," Todd said again. He stood, lurched out of the bar.

HERE

Ow. I clutched my head. The same voice as the one in the cave. Louder. Not loud, ears weren't involved. Stronger, more intense.

Lux was the center of that crowd of women. They laughed and joked and seemed to be playing a game involving a spinning bottle and random kisses.

I passed the time by reading the book about Schmendrick's Monster School. I want my friends to be monsters, and if you have this book you are my friend. You have strength that I want you to have because you are my friend. I won't let you down because I love you.

It was a straightforward magical-martial arts kind of thing. Try this, do that, think about the other. It was actually pretty useful in teaching Magic. I wanted to go outside and see if I could do any of it.

Lux was making out with two of the other girls simultaneously, while the rest of them watched. Things seemed to be getting pretty intense; hands went under clothes. Then Lux abruptly sagged in the arms of the other girls, who laughed and kept her from hitting the floor.

"Wen M'Tayo," Lux called, probably meaning Owen Mateo. She turned and pointed at me. "That guy, the one who acts like a policemen. Owen! I like these Humans. Don't get weird about it."

I gave her a thumbs up.

"Yeah you ain't her daaaad!" shouted two of the girls. "Come see our hotel," they shouted to Lux.

She looked at me and I nodded, trying not to smile. I wasn't her daaaad.

Adaobi met my eyes. I felt the fierceness of the soul in her, one that shared my goals regarding Lux. She raised her eyebrows in mute inquiry.

I nodded again. Go have fun, you crazy kids.

Not that I didn't watch where they went. The group left the bar, then hit a medical healer place across the narrow street called Doctor Bitchslap. Then they all staggered, giggling, into their

rooms.

All right. I returned to our room, read Schmendrick's book. Fell asleep; I'd taken all the watches the previous night. I woke from a nightmare about being in the Ping pen. I might have been shouting.

"Whoa." Whatever Lux had done at Doctor Bitchslap had cut her soul loose, and it was blazing. I could feel our connection, warm and silvery and strong. I realized they'd removed that Rune tattoo from her arm. Her soul was unrestricted and its energies were flowing into those she was close with.

Lux was having a very, very good time.

Talk about voyeurism. I was woozy, drunk with someone else's lust. Drunk with someone else's Alien Hooch, too. I almost dropped my Schmendrick book. I was a Human fly, spelled F-L-Y…

It was difficult not to find it funny. What does one do here, when one wants to respect a friend's privacy? Does this connection have a distance limit? I didn't think so. Dr. Michelle and her ghouls had seemed pretty clear that their project was a mass-media endeavor. And the anatomical differences I was experiencing…

I got a phone call. Who had my number?

"Found you," said Dr. Michelle.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.