Chương 21: You need hugs too

Vaguely, I was aware that I was dreaming. Sirens blared. Some dumb kid had tried to parkour along the Waterloo train station on 230 Leake Street, London. Now he was in the back of an ambulance. His hands were covered in black, twisting burnmarks, and his left leg had to be fixed with too many braces to count. The gray sub-skeletal dura mater was visible behind a crack in his skull, intact, untorn. The poor, stupid kid was still breathing. Lucky. He got lucky.

The strobing red light kept me frozen in place like a deer in headlights. Panic. I was having a panic attack.

"Nonresponsive," one of the paramedics said. They could've been talking about him, or about me. The kid couldn't have been older than fifteen. A see-through copy of him was slowly detaching itself from his body.

"Clear." A beep, a mechanical zap, and the ghost was sucked back into the body. Defibrillator. Right. Getting fried by the overhead high voltage transmission line meant any number of bad things ™ for his heart. Ventricular fibrillation, asystole, thermal and electrical burns to the myocardium, general chaos in the sinoatrial node leaving it incapable of coordinating an organized heartbeat. It was so bad that the paramedics had looked at the open skull and decided it was a secondary issue.

"Patient is in PBS with MUH." I blinked. I had to do something. That was what I was here for, right? I chose four weeks as a paramedic to prepare myself for what it meant to engage with the dying instead of the dead. I wanted to save people. I needed to. The world was too loud with suffering.

"C-can I help?" I asked, offering my services as a dispenser of sterile dressings. The two paramedics — professionals with a bit of gallows humor — didn't look at me, even as one accepted the alcohol-soaked gauze and quickly stuck it to the kid's forehead. And that was it. There was nothing for me to do, nothing I could do. I was roughly pushed to the side and out of the already cramped ambulance.

"We're cutting today short. Need the space. Take a tram back to the hospital."

"O-ok, I'll just—" The door slammed shut. The ambulance ambulanced away, wee-wooing until its siren was lost in the noise of London proper. I stood on the side of the road, staring ahead with a haunted expression on my face.

"Man, they really screwed that up, didn't they?" the kid said, standing right next to me. I stared at his see-through face in quiet horror. As all dreams go, he made a scream like a rabid elk, jumped on my face, pushed me through the floor — and I was awake again. I woke up with a start. Everything was quiet. Light. There was light creeping in through a pair of tent flaps, landing right on my pillow. I was lying in a cot, surrounded by something incredibly fuzzy. Medical bits and doo-dads were strewn all about.

Stop panicking. The kid didn't die. It was just a dream. Water. I needed water. Slowly, I looked down at the furry blanket enveloping me. Oh, hey Addy. She looked dead to the world, eyes scrunched up, arms, legs, even her entire body wrapped around me protectively. It must've been her first real snooze for days. Quietly, carefully, I twisted my way out of her embrace. I wasn't wearing much. The closest blanket turned into my cloak, tucked tight with four fully functioning hands. No acid burns, no flesh wounds.

Someone had left a pair of fluffy slippers with a cat motif nearby. They were cute, and soft. Slowly, with careful baby steps I shuffled my way out of the tent. Ugh. The light. So bright. Should've gone back inside, into my nest, where it is warm and safe. People were about. They were talking, walking, carrying crates and weapons and what have you like busy bees. The… evac zone. That's where I was. The few pitched tents had grown into a village.

In front of a bigger one, a smattering of helpers were busy ladling a chunky stew into paper bowls. I shuffled over. It took longer than expected. The middle-aged woman noticed me first. She had a bandaged gash across her collarbone.

"Oh dear, you look ghastly. Hard time reaching safety?"

"Soup."

"Oh what am I saying, we're all in dire straits. Good thing that robo-girl has been managing people, or I reckon we'd be at the mercy of those pink devils."

"Soup." One of the other helpers whispered to the woman.

"Mom, I think she's hungry."

"Oh dear." She handed me the soup. I pulled my blanket-hood back and with a shivering hand took one chunk-filled bite. The woman looked quite alarmed. I didn't care. There were more important things in life. Mmmh. Soup. Liquid life.

"It's… her." Mmmh.

"Hey, miss, err, Spider?" The woman waved her hands in front of my face. I could see it through the secondary eyes on my forehead. Very handy.

"I wanted to thank you, miss. We were in the mall when those critters came crawling inside and herded us away. I saw what they did to those who resisted. I just wanted to say… thank you. You did a good thing." I licked my lips as I slowly looked up at her. Good things happened to good people, and good people deserved rewards. Would it be too much to ask for more soup? Suddenly someone tugged me roughly by the shoulder.

"You!" Another woman. Mid-thirties. Bandage over her left eye. She was shaking me. It was quite rude. Dropped my soup. Aw.

"Where is my husband?" Her grip on my collar tightened.

"He disappeared three weeks ago. You people haven't said a thing about him, not the union, not the feds, not the whatever godsdamned circus keeps you freaks! Where. Is. My. George!?" I dunno. I'm hungry. Please don't be so loud. I was still staring at my puddle of soup when a couple of armed guards peeled her off of me and escorted her away, sobbing. That was… unfun. Guess I wasn't as good as I thought I was. But now the middle-aged woman was cleaning soup off of my blanket-mantle. Maybe…

maybe they didn't know that. Maybe I still deserved some food.

"I am so, so sorry," said one of the people behind the counter.

"Can we make it up to you, somehow?" I raised two fingers.

"Two soup." I got two soups. With comfort in hand I shuffled back to Addy, a happy tune humming in the back of my throat. Two soups for the price of none. Good hunt. Back to the nest, err, the tent. Three, that's three spidery thoughts in one morning. How very odd. The tent flaps closed behind me and everything was dark again. Darkness. And then I remembered. The feeling of oozing tendrils climbing up my nose and into my mouth, preventing me from moving an inch, screaming, or biting my tongue…

Two soup-bowls clattered to the ground as I dry-heaved into the next corner. It turns out, some mimics were driven by a wicked sense of intelligence. Swallowing me alive, forcing my limbs as if I'm some sort of meat-mech… from the Ur-mimic's perspective, it made a sick sort of sense. It didn't know how many extra lives I had, but a Custodian could be expected to have at least a couple.

Why bother taking all those lives when you could instead imprison one and take her skin to distract the rest, tie them down, and waste their time all while the clock of doom ticked on ahead? Intellectually, I was aware of this. Practically, I was busy heaving into a corner. In the corner of a secondary eye, something moved. I screamed as something white and soft jumped into my lap. It was Foggy. Just Foggy. My cat. Mine. A single tear crawled down my face. She meowed indignantly as I grabbed her in a hug. Victory.

Success — at a cost, yes, but success nonetheless. This moment could have lasted for an eternity. Alas, I couldn't stop time. With a start, I felt someone put a large hand on my shoulder. The hand retreated immediately.

"Sorry! Sorry. It's me. Addy." I looked up at the bulky, furry form nearly filling out the entire tent.

"Addy?" Addy the magical girl. The Custodian. The weretanuki. I was a Custodian too. Right. I woke up surrounded not by a blanket, but by her, hugging me protectively like I was the most precious thing in the world. Even now she stood there like a glass figurine ready to shatter. There was guilt in those eyes, coupled with a deep self-loathing. I slapped my cheeks, then again. Get a grip. Magical girls don't break down, not in public.

"I'm fine," I said, pulling myself onto a cot.

"I'm ok now." She looked less than convinced. As I swung my legs over the side of the cot to get up, a sudden sense of vertigo hit me square in the head. Addy immediately shot to her feet.

"Are you hurt?" she asked, patting me down, fussed all over me.

"Did I miss a spot? How many fingers am I holding up?" I blinked at her with four of six eyes. Wow she was fuzzy from up close, fuzzy and warm. It almost made me want to lean forward and just take another… nap…

"Addy, where is your left arm?" The girl flinched, actually flinched as I stared at the point where the thin blanket betrayed the contours of her body. Slowly, she raised a small stub of it out of her blanket.

"Lost it. Mimics." From the way she was suddenly trying too hard to look me straight in the face to the slight break in her voice, all of it betrayed that she was lying. She wasn't good at it. I was whole, and Addy was one arm short of a pair. I wasn't supposed to be whole, not after— —clammy skin, rough like barnacles digging into your eyes— … that. But she had found a way to make it happen, in exchange for just one part of herself. She must have been so relieved. I'm so sorry. You deserve to be slapped.

You need to be hugged.

"I'll be fine," she added belatedly, and I growled in frustration, leaning forward and pulling her onto me with every arm and leg available. The cot creaked, then shattered beneath us. Addy tried to catch herself with her missing arm. I got a faceful of fuzzy floof.

"Ack! Pbthbth!" It made it hard to breathe.

"... Sorry." Addy tried to get up, but I was clinging tight to her.

"Samantha?"

"Now that I have you in my spidery clutches, there will be no escape from my revenge." I leaned in close and whispered into her ear.

"You saved my butt, big time. Thank you." Addy tensed again.

"Don't thank me. I left you to fend for yourself. I stabbed you. I am the higher level one, I have more experience, I should have known better."

"Well, I guess the good and the bad cancels out to net-zero then." I gave her a dry laugh that devolved into a cough. She didn't look cheered up in the slightest.

"Remind me again, you were running on how much sleep?"

"Twelve hours." Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. I raised an eyebrow.

"That day, or that week?" She chose not to answer, instead turning her head abashedly. We remained in place for a while. Compared to the cot, it was a thousand times more comfortable.

"I still stabbed you," she eventually muttered so quiet I barely heard it.

"In the boob!"

"Why do you keep on saying that?"

"To lighten the mood. And 'cause I'm pretty sure I shouldn't have survived that." The stab. Or the mimic.

"But I did! I have a scar now. Wanna see it?"

"Hngrk!" was Addy's reply. I blinked. Wait, this was that accidental flirting thing that Clem warned me about. Whoops. Slowly, I unpeeled myself from my savior slash anti-savior slash its-complicated-but-she-means-well.

"So. You gonna run away again?" I asked.

"No…"

"Good, because if I can't get you to stay with hugs, I'll need to get a leash." I paused, playing the words that had just come out of my mouth back.

"N-not like that! I mean, chokers have been a staple of fashion since before the 2000s, but I don't know if you even like chokers, and I'd never force that on anyone and besides, I don't even know if something made for dogs has any sort of awkward implications in weretanuki culture… Addy, is everything alright?"

"N-no." She burst into tears. Big salty weretanuki tears, complete with snot, incoherent blubbering, and everything else. It was honestly a little frightening just how much she was crying, as if she'd bottled these feelings up for a decade.

"I didn't wanna see another friend die," she sobbed.

"I didn' wanna fugg it all up for everyone else again. If it's just me… just me…" I rubbed her back and let her cry her heart out until she was done, and I was fairly sure I needed a new top.

"... why do you still want to be my friend?" she whispered.

"Because despite your flaws, you're kinda awesome?"

"I'm not awesome."

"Sure. Keep saying that Miss Awesome-pants."

"I'm not wearing pants either. These're pyjamas." I blinked. I think my tanuki is a bit autistic.

"You're right. I barely know a thing about you. But we can change that. Let's just talk?" Just for a while, take a little break, as a treat. Addy nodded glumly. I started, petting Foggy under her chin while regaling her of my epic tales finding all sorts of creepy crawlies in my backyard. The tension in the tent bled away. We chatted for some time, about our lives, our experiences in the convergence event, about anything that came to mind.

"You lived in Hokkaido before drifting to the US? I would never have guessed that you're Japanese."

"Only by a technicality," she muttered.

"I learned to talk when I was already living in Wisconsin for years. I also made my human body there." I flipped her to face me.

"Alright, you can't just drop an insane sentence like that and expect me to not pry."

"It's nothing important," she said too quickly. I raised an eyebrow. My fuzzy friend folded like ricepaper.

"I'm… as you know, I'm not human."

"Uh-huh."

"This here isn't the real, true me. It's my transformation."

"Your magical girl transformation."

"My weretanuki transformation," she said.

"This and that are two different things. I didn't get my transformations from an essence."

"So, you can just shapeshift because you were born like that? That's awesome!" I blinked.

"Wait, you didn't get a human body until you were level 20? Is Big Addy your real body? It's something else — I have to see it."

"I don't show this to most people for a reason," she muttered.

"Prepare to be disappointed I guess." Blinding light enveloped her bulk with rainbow colors, a sped-up theme song running in the distance. In one moment, I was holding on to weretanuki-Addy. In the next, the face of a very awkward life-sized tanuki was staring back at me with two beady black eyes. Her nose nervously sniffed the air even as her face retreated into her copious fur, as if bracing for some terrible judgement.

Pointedly, she was still wearing her baggy white T-shirt, and her pajama pants, except they were sized down to fit her new form perfectly.

"Oh. My. God. You're so cuuute!" I squealed, squishing my fuzziest friend until all I could see of her face was her nose. The rest was buried in a thick wintery pelt marbled beige and white. Dark fur around her eyes reminded me of a raccoon, and the equally dark fur that grew up and down her leg of knee-high socks.

"Oh my god, we're matching," I said, excitedly putting my partially melted cut-resistant gloves next to a paw. Addy looked overwhelmed. The poor girl probably never had anyone fawn over her like this before, which was downright criminal. Anybody who didn't see a fuzzy raccoon dog like her and felt the desire to take out a loan just to fulfill her every need and desire was simply not human. I mean, just look at her little pawsies!

Halfway through exploring how many fingers she actually had on her toes, my eyes met hers and I froze. Unbidden, the voice of an old flame came back like a bite to the back of my neck. Sam. You're being weird again.

"Am I being too much? Do you want me to stop?" I asked, even as my thumbs were gently drawing circles on her paws. She stared at me, then slowly shook her head.

"You want me to keep on going?" She squeaked like a chew toy. From then on, my heart was captured by tiny tanuki Addy. Her other forms were great as well, but this one obviously took the cake. So adorable. And honest, too. If only handling human and weretanuki Addy was this straightforward. Halfway through trying to wrap her in a blanket burrito, the tent flap flicked open. A paramilitary-looking grunt peeked inside, eyes hidden behind a half-helm with what was probably an AR visor strapped to the front.

It didn't look like standard gear.

"Miss Custodians," he said.

"The corporal would like a word with you." Addy and I paused, staring at him with six eyes between the two of us.

"Are we being drafted?" I asked. He grinned.

"Not unless you keep her waiting." Then he left, probably to give me privacy to make myself decent. I groaned. Whatever meeting someone ominously dubbed the corporal meant, it was probably work related, and with work I meant magical girl stuff. Running around, murking mimics, risking our lives, et cetera. After my first day, I just wanted to while away the week in my bed. But I couldn't. My cat was safe, but there was more on the line. The lives of so many people depended on me performing.

It was like the scene in the ambulance, but extrapolated to a thousand different people and places. And there was that dread again. C'mon Samantha, do something fun.

"Hey Addy," I said as she struggled to extricate herself from my embrace.

"Did I ever say that you were allowed to get out of my burrito?" Addy went stock-still. My grin grew wide and evil.

"This is your punishment for leaving poor me all alone. You are going to accompany me in your tanuki form. You're injured after all," I said, pointing to her missing front paw.

"You need all the rest you can get. Isn't that right?" The look on her face was priceless, somewhere between wide-eyed and horrified. She was struggling more in my grip now, but I had four arms. She could've easily escaped with her stats, but evidently she was too shocked and too uncoordinated to mount an effective escape. Maybe I was coming on too strong, too quickly. Maybe she'd be more comfortable if she had an out. I leaned in close until we were nose to snout.

"Is that alright with you?" Addy went cross eyed. After hesitating for a long minute, she gave me the tiniest nod of defeat. Yesss, victory! Hopefully this one wasn't going to make everything ten times worse, which it probably was considering my track record. But Addy hadn't run away from me yet, so compared to our last encounter that was progress. I brushed my hair, swapped my top and pants for a fresh pair that had been delivered in a plastic bag sometime while I was asleep, and washed away the old makeup. Ekh.

Flaky and dry. Terrible for my skin. Wait, how long was I out for? I bought a calendar extension for my system implant, for exactly five soulcoins. [Soulcoins: 476->471] Woah, that's a lotta coins. Where did I get those from? Apparently, I got a hundred as a participation award for helping beat the elite mimics quickly. But that wasn't what I focused on. [For saving the people trapped in the mall, you gain: Soulcoins x203] Right. Quest #1 offered two soulcoins per butt deposited in the evac zone.

A hundred and one people saved was good stuff, even if the math didn't add up. It was definitely going to be awkward to discover whoever the system thought was only worth half a person. Anyhoo, it was Friday. As in, next week Friday. As in, we had about two days left to save the… day. Oh flubb my life. When I was done I looked to Addy, who had just been staring at me with a sort of trance-like fascination.

"Lucky you that tanukis don't need to do makeup. Now, what do I do with you?" I unwrapped part of her burrito, then placed her in my backpack that was bigger on the inside. She dug her way down, shame or a desire to keep at least a bit of dignity driving her. The only visible part left was her fluffy tail poking out the top. Good enough. The bright light outside was blinding. Clouds had made way for a glaring sun.

Now that I was more aware the pungent, near physical vibe of muggy air hit me like opening a teenager's unaired room in midsummer. People were still bustling around. Every direction was filled with the busy sound of people at work. Panic was notably absent. A pair of young men carried a camping cooler to a large tent from which the smell of food managed to overpower that of the atmosphere, while two older women were inspecting a small truckload of looted food by slapping them with brooms.

One of the chip bags didn't crinkle right. It barely had time to extend a spindly limb before it was swept to the side and swiftly beaten to death.

"Wow." I stared some more at a group of students holding a demonstration on how to make water potable.

"And all this happened in five days? This is so… organized." No way mayor Mendoza had his grubby hands in this. And indeed, when I next spotted him he was making obsequious gestures towards a couple of paramilitaries clustered around a mobile stage bus that looked like it was filled to the gills with tech. Tech that, notably, did not look like it was going to feature in this year's silicon valley circlejerk, or even the next ten, twenty, or thirty.

The stage bus opened up on one side and was surrounded by a complicated array of chalk markers and different colors of paint. Kind of reminds me of a circuit board, but more… organic. There was a group of people ahead. One of them looked like a robot. She was about a head shorter than I was, so about average height for a grown woman. The back of her head was a metallic silver, as was the back of her neck, the insides of her knees, and basically anything that was visible beneath her blacksite military fatigues.

The same silver color stretched to her hair, which she carried in a nest of constantly moving metal dreadlocks. She's moving like a human. Is she human? Maybe she's a friendly alien. Do those exist? Ooh, maybe she's the result of a mad victorian scientist trying to create life from lightning, who has lived a hundred years, steadily upgrading her body until she arrived at what she is today. Eee, this is so exciting!

One of the dreads turned to look at me, then seven others followed with red camera lenses like baleful eyes. [Custodian Robo Medusahead, Adaptable Logistician lvl 35] … wait, she's a Custodian? How did she get inside the barrier-dome? I walked up and poked her arm.

"'Scuse me? Do I call you Robo Medusahead, RoboMedusa or Medusahead. Actually, can I shorten it to Dusa?" The woman turned to me, pushing up her sunglasses. Oh my god she had sunglasses! That's so, so… thematic! Her face was otherwise unremarkable. Perfectly symmetrical, all metal, with red irises and a see-through sclera that gave a window into the restless workings of cogs below.

"Miss Dusa is acceptable." Her entire mane turned towards me as if it was alive with little mechanical bloops and blips. Some were shaped like actual snake heads, some just ending in a big red camera lens. Wonder if they're all cameras. Big Medusa is watching you. Heh. The moment I tried to respond I felt mayor Mendoza's eyes on me.

"You!" The mayor said, whirling on me.

"You're the one who burnt down the mall. It's ruined, ruined! How will you pay for this?"

"I, uh, I—" Shit, I did do that. It wasn't even collateral damage, it was entirely premeditated. Do I have magical girl insurance? Is that complimentary? Do we get good lawyers on the down low for cases such as these? A metal hand gently grasped his shoulder. His legs shifted to re-balance under the additional weight. Miss Dusa was smiling, but it was the kind of smile a lion gave to a meerkat after it had peed on its nose.

"Mayor Mendoza, this Custodian solved the situation you purposefully underplayed and ignored. Furthermore, you refused the installation of state-of-the-art early-warning systems, opting for cheaper alternatives against your associate advisor's direct recommendations, and actively obstructed followup inspections." Wait. This was… kind of a big deal, no? If someone around Florida, say, sabotaged an early warning system for hurricanes, that could lead to a whole lot of trouble. He could've gotten people killed.

Heck, he probably did. My estimation of him, which was already low, fell even further. You should drink him. What? No. I'm not going to 'drink him'. And where did that thought come from? The mayor opened his mouth, but Medusahead cut him off.

"You have five seconds until I ballistically remove your rear, not just from this county but from the entire state. The people will see your rear trailing fire all the way to Washington and they will think that finally pigs have learned to fly. In favor of not spreading misinformation all the way to D. C., how about you take a break, and don't bother the professionals with your smalltown bullshit. Are we clear, mister Mendoza?" In contrast with her diplomatic tone, she gave his shoulder a squeeze.

He was white as a sheet, relenting more because he wanted to keep his shoulder intact than anything else. Once he'd scampered off, she turned back to us with the same neutral-bored face I'd seen her put on throughout the entirety of this conversation.

"Politicians. The same wherever you go." Her entire visual apparatus focused on me again. Maybe she was expecting me to take a step back. I didn't. Snakes were almost as cool as spiders.

"So you are the spider that has been patching problems in this podunk town. I am Medusahead. Me and my crew are international contractors that specialize in intel acquisition, evacuation, and cleanup operations. With three Custodians after five days this place should have been clear by now. Care to tell me why that is not the case, and why I am only seeing one?" Addy shifted in my backpack.

"Well, first off, one of the Custodians is a pacifist gnome. Then, I became a magical girl last Sunday and ended the weekend in a coma." Miss Dusa gave me an inquisitive stare.

"And the third? Where is Custodian Adelaide?"

"She's busy," I lied casually.

"Lots of stuff to do when the sky rains mimics." Addy's tail twitched. Two of Medusahead's tentacles had found her and were bothering her tail with inquisitive nudges.

"Cute pets. Are you a summoner of sorts?" I looked at Foggy, who was being awfully cuddly in my arms, and felt Addy move in my backpack. Crap. Does a summoner class… or build exist in the Custodian space?

"I have two essences and a dream," I answered in a chipper tone.

"They love being praised. Don't you, girl?" Addy made a quiet, keening noise of embarrassment.

"I prefer drones, though I can appreciate the idea of reviving a dead build archetype." Medusahead flicked her hair. One of the thicker strands straightened out before floating right off her scalp, propelled by rows of propellers on each side like a marriage between a centipede and a fly. Creepy. But also, kinda cool.

"So, stupid question, but how are you, y'know, here?" The dome had a maximum Custodian capacity. Yet another tradeoff to make magic on this scale work.

"I am not. I am currently in Chicago. This," she said, pointing at her chest, "is my most expensive drone. As for this… quaint little town, I cannot wait to leave it behind and attend to personal matters. Even after evacuating ninety percent of the town we are barely in the black, and a few mimics are causing issues with my drones." I blinked at her, watching as a family of three were led towards the stage truck behind her. They disappeared in a flash of light.

"Teleportation. You're teleporting people out."

"Yes."

"Isn't that like… expensive?" She crossed her arms.

"Speaking in soulcoins, it is only worth it if you truck in the necessary reagents physically. You need to prepare enough for the entire population. However, not everyone will make it to the teleporter. The surplus perishable reagents are then wasted, leading to lower soulcoin margins. So yes. It is prohibitively expensive." Not that profit is the only reason you should help people.

"I mean, people are still in danger. Helping them is what we're here for, right?" The woman laughed, like a robot.

"That is correct. You look like a newbie, but you have the right attitude for a Custodian. You would have done great in PR if you were not so obviously arachnid-y." Ouch. I winced at the slight dig.

"I can make the eyes disappear?" Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

"A sensible choice. Weird tall girl, overly friendly, extra arms? Hm, yes, that would sell. Anyways, now that you are no longer in coma-town, I have a job for you and your furry friend that you actually can handle." Woah, that was a bit snippy. And hey, I just got out of bed, what do you mean you have a job for— [Optional quest: Getting popular] Assumed difficulty: Lvl 1 Primary objective: Deliver quality footage to Robo Medusahead for her collage of Custodian efforts.

Footage must include either: Custodian victory over foe without being hit Custodian epically failing (no gore) Anything incriminating the Custodian Adelaide as unfit for leadership Primary reward: x1 Gold Premium PR course with the Medusahead PR agency.

"HUH!?"