IN LAB A, SUZANNE WAS awake. She was stuck in the tank, which Halcyon assured him was acid proof. Otherwise, the tank was empty. At this stage, it wasn’t a medical bay, only a prison cell.

  Roy pulled up the chair he’d sat in the night before. He’d printed himself a cup of coffee-flavored coffee for his conversation.

  Suzanne had cleaned up. She was half snake and half blond woman, a honey blonde. Chrissy was the dirty blonde, in more ways than one. Suzanne’s short hair, though, shone like spun gold. Her eyes were a startling yellow, and yet, it made her pretty. Her snake fingers were gone, and she had normal human fingers, though her fingernails were long and, yes, painted yellow.

  Too bad she’d been crafted by the enemy to destroy them all. The yellow snake woman probably should’ve had a room in the Yellow Home. Her nipples were pinkly perfect, big and thick on her large breasts. Her bronze skin merged with the scales of her bottom snaky part. The coils of her lower body filled the tank. There was so much of her to contain.

  She looked into his face. “So, who died and made you boss?” She had a slithery little laugh.

  “Funny,” he said. “I designed you, you know. You originally were going to be Auricia Khan, the snake scourge, with an army of nagas at your command.”

  “The lamia generalissimo?” she said with a smile. “Would I have scaled the heights of power?”

  Roy made a face. “Come on, Suzanne. No puns.”

  “Suzanne?” She also made a face. “You’re calling me Suzanne? What happened to Auricia?”

  “What did Morcom call you?” Roy asked.

  She rolled her eyes. “Like I’m going to talk about Morcom. I have to say, though, you’re much better looking. Morcom is what happens when zombies have sex with computers. He’s the love child of a coffee maker and your third aunt’s funeral. He’s like Super Mario Corpse.”

  “Pax Americana references,” Roy sighed. “So why are you working for him?”

  “He doesn’t call me Suzanne.” She laughed at her own joke. She sobered. “He promised me riches, rewards, the things a lamia general would like. An army, for one thing. You don’t have an army. Though my minions aren’t as tough as they should be. Also, that glowing blue gunk? What the hell? Morcom certainly has a hard-on for it. Not that I want to contemplate his hard drive, which probably isn’t that hard.”

  Roy wasn’t sure what was happening. He found himself liking this snake women. She was smart, clearly, and she was funny when she wasn’t punny. But he didn’t mind a bad pun—not that there were any good ones.

  “So if I beat his offer?” Roy asked.

  “Buying my loyalty? Are you tempting me?” She slithered around in the cage, turning slowly and lifting herself up to the top to inspect the robotic arms. “There’s a snake in the Garden of Eden joke in there somewhere. I’ll pretend I made it. You pretend you laughed.”

  “You have a good imagination,” he said.

  “I have an excellent imagination and a keen sense of humor. For example, what do you call a snake that cleans your windshield?” she asked, coming back down to his level.

  “Don’t tell me.” He braced for impact.

  “A windshield viper.” Suzanne snorted at the terrible joke.

  “I said don’t tell me.” Roy sipped his coffee. “So, if I let you out, I think you’ll try to kill me.”

  “With my creepy snake fingers?” She flicked up a hand and her fingers melted into yellow snakes, which hissed, showing red mouths and fangs.

  “No, with your puns. Come on, Suzanne, level with me. Why are you working for Morcom? I think you’re smarter than that.”

  Her hands returned to normal. “Creepy Snake Fingers was my band name. Morcom offered me a record deal. I’m going to be a star, Roy Boss.”

  “Not an answer,” he said.

  Suzanne turned around so he couldn’t see her chest or her face. Both were so alluring. Her voice changed, though. “Look at it from my point of view. I get printed to be your enemy, and I have all this shit in my head, and hatred, so much hatred. You were going to be my enemy forever. And, dude, you took shots at me, and your spider bitch was, well, toxic. I’m printed, I lose my shit, and I escape. Then Morcom gives me an army and says you all need to die. Just following orders. Generals follow orders like everyone else.”

  “So what changed?” he asked.

  She spun around to face him. “Nothing’s changed. Fuck you if you think anything has changed.”

  It was odd, but he’d gotten used to Toxy in her drider form, and so a half woman, half monster didn’t seem that strange to him. And her blond hair was enticing, as were her yellow eyes, as long as she kept her pupils round and not vertical slits. “But Halcyon didn’t do me any favors. She turned off my anti-sentience flag and messed with my sex.config, so I’m all kinds of fucked up. For example, I do find it annoying that Morcom isn’t funny. He’s this dour asshole. However, he is my commanding officer. That’s why I came after you, both in the tunnels and in your little neighborhood here. I took down two of your monster girls. And I waited until your little nest was empty, and I figured I’d come slithering in and take out your command center. Do a little scorched-earth warfare on your ass. But, hey, got a question for you.”

  “Another joke?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, offended. “I can be serious. But what kind of programming language do snakes code in?”

  He shrugged. “I could beg you not to tell me. I could threaten you.”

  “Wouldn’t help.” Suzanne laughed. “Python. It’s a programming language. It’s snake based. I got a million of ’em. I’m here ’til Thursday. Try the fish. Be sure to tip your waitstaff.”

  He sighed. “More Pax Americana references I don’t quite get. You have to update your material. I can help. You should come and work for me.”

  She shook her head. “If I keep jumping sides, no one will ever trust me. What good is a lamia general if you can’t trust her?”

  “Only two sides in this game,” Roy said. “And you’re on the losing side.”

  “Says the guy in the bunker underneath a dead world where my side wiped out the entire population? Anybody up top selling falafels? What’s the food truck sitch up there?”

  “Not good,” Roy said. “But I still have a functioning cock. Pretty sure it’s the only one on the planet. So I got that going for me.”

  “I do like a good trouser snake.” She paused. Waited.

  “I’m not going to laugh at that.”

  “Come on!” Her brow furrowed. “I’m certainly not going to get any funnier. And that was a pun that actually worked in the conversation. Not even a chuckle?”

  “You don’t want the pity laugh.”

  “Oh. But I do.” She leaned back and rested against the glass on her coils with her arms crossed. “It can’t happen, Roy. I told you...you’ll never be the boss of me. I’m a lone snake, in charge of my armies, and I won’t be executed for treason. You’re asking me to do something I can never, ever do. Morcom is a douchebag, but he’s my douchebag commander. I have to follow his orders.”

  “And if Morcom wasn’t around anymore? Would you come and take my orders?”

  “Oh, kinky. Be your little sex toy? I think not.” She did give him a long, smoldering gaze. She was having definite ideas about him. That was clear. “But you are a better audience than Old Dusty Balls back at the base. Dusty Balls, that’s Morcom. It’s a pet name for him.”

  “And where’s your base?” Roy asked.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” She smiled, but it was sad. “I’m the Lamia Regina-1, and while I should be Auricia Khan, I’m Suzanne. Name, rank, and serial number. I got that wrong. But you know the drill. Speaking of drills. It’s been fun, Roy, but I really have to go.”

  Roy set his mug down. He stood up. “I’m not going to ask how you think you’re going to get out of there. I’ll try to go easy on you.”

  “You better not,” she said. “You’ll want to put me down before I kill all of you. Jokes aside, Roy Boss, I play to win. And you’d better believe I’m going to win this war between us.” There was no smile. There was no warm glint in her eye. There was only the cold hardness of a snake woman looking to eat the rats in the hole she’d crawled into.

  “But the war isn’t between you and me,” Roy corrected. “The fight is between me and Morcom. And once he goes down, hard, I’m going to offer you a job. I need a general. You see, I lost my home country, and I want to get it back.”

  “So you can be the rightful ruler?” she asked. “I like a righteous cause.”

  The alarms sounded, there was the thunder of wreckage in the other room, and Halcyon’s voice came over his implants, screaming. “Joey is out! She woke up, busted free, and she’s—”

  The panther goddess came smashing into the room with one intention and one intention only. She drove a claw into the tank, shattering the reinforced glass and making a jagged hole. It wasn’t big enough for the lamia general to come slithering out, but it had affected the integrity of the glass. The Effexium in the panther woman’s claws could cut through anything. Knowing Joey, she’d woken up and played possum until Halcyon got distracted. Then she struck.

  Halcyon’s attempt to reprogram Joey seemed to have failed. It was a shame. Roy didn’t want to hurt the panther goddess, but he might have no choice.

  As for Suzanne, she saw her chance. She expanded her snake tails until the pressure of the muscle cracked the rest of the tank. The entire room was filled with exploding glass, and Roy felt his skin automatically harden to protect himself.

  Joey reversed course and darted back into the Hub. Roy ducked a spray of Suzanne’s acid, which splashed onto the wall, sizzling and smoking so much he couldn’t see for a minute. Suzanne broke free, slithering as fast as Joey ran because the lamia general also had speed abilities.

  She spun and spit acid at him as he came out of the ruins of Lab A. Roy threw up an arm and felt the spray splash across his forearm. The acid ate through his shirt and into his skin. His arm metaled up, but that acid continued to bite into his flesh.

  He turned into his Infinity Juggernaut form. It helped, but his arm was still burned, and the pain was intense. He used that pain to fuel his legs as he sped after Joey and Suzanne, who were blurring down the hallway.

  Roy knew that he was going to rip up the hallway, but he didn’t dare shrink himself. He was going to have to bash his way out of the lab, or, he knew, there was a good chance the snake woman’s acid would eat through his arm. He might be able to grow a new one, but he wasn’t going to bet on it—not after what happened to Chrissy’s eyes. He bounced into a wall, tore through the side, and then lowered a shoulder into the door.

  He broke it down—thank goodness that the Magnetic Charge Locks hadn’t been engaged. In the stairwell, he had to head bash through the concrete of the stairs to squeeze himself up. It was part running, part climbing, part ripping through the cement to get to the ground level. It was then easy to break through the sheetrock. He pounded across the floor and went through the glass windows at the front like a runaway spacecraft on a self-destruct course. He bashed through the glass and stomped outside.

  He'd not been outside to get to Pine Springs, and so he didn’t know a storm had blown in. The air was freezing, the sky was a layer of slate, and a few snowflakes swirled in a bad wind. More snow was definitely on the way.

  The world was a terror of wasps, carrying zombies over the wall and dropping them onto the ground, where they landed on strong legs reinforced with steel. They staggered forward. An explosion reduced part of the western wall to dust. That dust boiled through the neighborhood. More tank driders crashed through houses, tearing through bricks and destroying drywall and pine studs. More dust. More explosions. Explosive shells crashed around Roy.

  This was the full-frontal assault they’d expected.

  But the timing was good. While Morcom had thrown an army of shit at them, Roy had a new army, and it was ready to be engaged. He loved it when a plan came together.

  The freight elevator doors opened down from where Roy stood outside the lab’s front entrance. Out poured his army of tarranghoulas. They’d ridden the platform up from the corridor and had piled into the elevator. Now they were here to fight. Goggles were fixed in place to protect their big eyes and limit their exposure to sunlight since the spider lemurs were actually nocturnal. Their melee weapons hung from leather harnesses. They raised plasma rifles and opened fire. Some even had armor, flexible Effexium suits that would harden when struck.

  Plasma blasts filled the air, taking down chrome wasps and putting holes in zombies.

  Joey, who had been about to take a run at Roy, claws out, stopped and stared. Whatever had scrambled her head seemed to fall away, and she gazed at the tarranghoula army in disbelief, then recognition, and then she smiled even as tears filled her eyes. These were the precious minions she’d been promised, the ones that had served her in her fantasies of ruling a jungle temple as the daughter of Murder and Night.

  Tails came speeding out as a fox girl. She soon transformed into a full hellfox, the size of a car, breathing fire.

  Roy wasn’t going to let Joey get a shot at him. While she was spellbound, staring at the spider lemur army, he hurled webs, sticking her arms to her sides and gluing her legs together. With a final throw of silk, he caught her and pulled her off her feet.

  She was out of the fight, at least for a minute, but Suzanne was there to take her place. The lamia general wasn’t the pretty comedian she’d been in the tank. Her blond hair was gone, and instead she had a cobra’s scaly hood and a face out of a nightmare. She came slithering on her tail, spraying acid. Her long snake fingers hissed at him, ready to fill his veins with poison.

  Roy felt the anger fill him. She knew she was serving a douchebag with dusty balls, but she was still fighting to win. Part of him could appreciate that. The other part was pissed off. As the CEO, he’d seen talent get seduced by assholes who then abused them. It happened a lot because good fucking people were prime targets for bad fucking people.

  Roy twisted around, using his speed to dodge the acid spray while clocking Suzanne with a giant fist, a solid blow right on the chin. She was thrown back in a rolling tangle of snake tail, arms, and a bleeding head. She was tough, all right. A punch like that would’ve torn the head off a regular person.

  Toxy and Chrissy came running out. The spider queen, as a drider, had her babies strapped across her back. When he saw them, he saw that Arra and Nida weren’t afraid. No, their twelve eyes were all slitted and full of hate. They wanted their mother to destroy these enemies. Roy knew, right then, it wouldn’t be long before the niddies would be fighting right alongside them.

  Chrissy had her helmet on and one of Halcyon’s drones buzzed by, letting Chrissy see. That helmet grew with her as she became a twelve-foot-tall horror show with steel horns. She flung goggles to Roy, who slipped them on over his own eyes.

  It was all coming together, and even Halcyon was helping out. A drone came flying out of the freight elevator, side guns flashing, blasting apart the army that had breached their defenses.

  A big wasp flew over them, but instead of a stinger, she had a sac of glowing insects trailing her. The chrome monster released a whole swarm of smaller robotic wasps, glowing blue in the gloom. The tiny metal insects hit Toxy and Chrissy, but not the niddies, thank goodness.

  Another swarm struck Tails and then flew over, hitting Suzanne and Joey as well. The minute they stung the monster girls, the insects died, dropping to the ground by the thousands. They no longer glowed, no, because they’d injected the monster girls with their payload, that blue liquid. Morcom had finally gotten smart. He’d not sent big shit to inject them, but tiny insects, a whole swarm.

  Roy grimly braced for impact. It was too late to run, and he could only hope that his skin would repulse their stingers. It didn’t. A thousand of the things hit him, stinging every inch of him and somehow slipping the toxic blue liquid into his veins.

  It hurt for a second, but then the robotic bees fell dead around him. What the hell? Nothing seemed to be happening to him. He spun around.

  His monster girls—Chrissy, Tails, Joey, and Suzanne—had gone completely and utterly insane.

  They turned on each other, they turned on the monsters around them—chrome wasp, cyborg zombie, or spider lemur—and they howled and killed anything within reach. They no longer had any kind of intelligence or humanity. They’d truly become monsters down to their very souls.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “OH, MY. WELL, THIS isn’t good, darling,” Toxy said far too casually. For whatever reason, she hadn’t been affected by the insect attack.

  Halcyon hit Roy’s mind with a string of curses. “Cock-fucking, ass-biting butt plug! The UnWolf! I get it now. We created big bad wolves for your worlds, right, Roy?”

  Roy then saw it with complete clarity. “That’s right, big bad wolves. And that blue goo is the UnWolf. It unmakes our wolves and turns them into mindless killing machines.”

  And Roy saw it wasn’t just the monster girl leaders, but the tarranghoulas who’d been driven insane as well. The Ordeal made sense now. Morcom had unleashed the nanotech into the world, and it somehow scrambled the minds of the monsters that the Pelerine had created. Those monsters had turned on the populace and destroyed them all.

  Joey, her ears back, hair standing on end, leapt onto Suzanne and drove her fangs into the snake woman’s neck. The lamia, far more snake than woman, whipped her body around, and the two went rolling off, spitting and biting and scratching each other.

  Chrissy roared and went stomping toward the hellfox, who was a beacon of flames, an inferno on paws. Before Tails could breathe fire on the huge satyr, Chrissy grabbed the hellfox by her throat and pushed her back into a bunch of zombies, who burst into fire because of the nine firebrands. The undead staggered only a few steps before they were turned to ash and slag.

  A chrome wasp hit Chrissy, and she pulled it apart. She flung the pieces at Tails. That only made the hellfox fling fireballs at her. The steel satyr grabbed two more wasps out of the sky and used them as shields, saving her skin from a complete flame bath, though she did leave the encounter scorched, blackened, and incredibly pissed off.