Yet for all its forlorn appearance, the ancient sentry still held the power to repel the would-be scavengers come to pillage Mr. McGregor’s garden. Even now, only one creature was in sight near the ominous farmhouse. A coal-black crow fluttered nervously to a perch atop the barn. Below her was a succulent blackcurrant bush. Its branches were bent and heaving with plump, moist fruit.

For a moment the crow considered diving for as long as it took to fill her beak with gushing blackcurrants. But her eye was once again drawn to the haunting reminder of what happened to those who dared to challenge the masters of this land. Three of her own children had been ground into bloody chow for McGregor’s hounds when they had been foolish enough to venture beyond the woods and into the garden in search of forbidden fruit.

A shudder went through the crow’s body from the tip of her sharp beak to her very pinfeathers. Her eyes lingered over the ghostly warden for one moment too long, for suddenly the breeze shifted and the monster turned. Its lollin ghead rolled toward her, and its coal-black shoebutton eyes seemed to stare into her soul as if to say, “Come to me if you dare, for I am Death.”

The crow leaped away and burst into flight, screaming her fear to the empty autumn sky.

THE DISTANT CRY of terror echoed inside Mrs. Rabbit’s head as she lurked inside the doorway to her home, where she huddled and sniffed the air for some sign of life. She shuddered and pulled her shawl close around her as she retreated farther down into the safety o the burrow. Her children had not yet returned, and she had been unable to sleep. Mrs. Rabbit had spent a fitful night in the rocking chair by the faint faire that gave off even less heat than the tiny bit of smoky light it provided. Dark shadows flickered everywhere around the room. Mrs. Rabbit’s dim eyes could barely make out the shapes of four beds that had not been slept in. She returned to the dying fire, adding the last stick on the hearth in an attempt to rekindle the flame. Whether her children came home or not, she must still have their breakfast waiting for them.

The old rabbit shuffled to a cupboard that was once a cheerful bright red but had faded to the same dull color of earth as everything else in the burrow. A sack of grain with enough for a few more meals was the only thing concealed by its creaking doors.

Mrs. Rabbit’s arthritic paws swelled in protest as she lifted her large cast iron pot onto the hook above the fire. Her back ached as she pumped a pail of water and dragged it to the hearth. Moments later she was granted reprieve when the pot was filled and she was able to shuffle back to her rocking chair to wait for the water to boil.

Her gray eyes focused on the growing light of the fire. All other things in the room were burned away by the small bright glow in front of her. Tiny ripples of orange and gold began to stroke the edges of the thin oak stick that rested on a crackling load of embers. Outside, the sky responded by growing a shade lighter as the first ripples of sunlight crept over the frosty hills.

But her children had not returned.

Mrs. Rabbit knew what this had to mean. She, like every other woodland mother, had borne and lost enough children to blunt any naive hopes about what happened to young ones who ventured out and failed to come home. Yet for all that a wish lingered in her ehart like the last embers of the fire on the hearth, needing only the faintest sound of a footstep in the tunnel to rekindle her soul.

Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter had made it longer than any of her other brood. Flopsy had even managed to marry Benjamin Bunny and have children of her own, shifting the burden of survival one generation away from Mrs. Rabbit. But so many others were lost and gone. Of her first litter, two were stillborn and Wilbur and Squidget had been carried off by hawks the first time they peeped out of the burrow’s door. Hector was never quite right in the head and got himself gobbled up by Reynard the Fox when he took the foolish notion into his head that their ravenous neighbor might enjoy a friendly delivery of warm scones and strawberry jam. The jam had sat untouched, and Reynard had greased his scones with Hector. Thelonius had been taken by plague, spending his last moments coughing slimy black sputum below the mulberry bush just outside the burrow door, where Mrs. Rabbit could only stand and watch in stony silence. She could not embrace him lest she risk infecting herself and her remaining children.

And how few remained! Nine little graves haunted the hill above the burrow, and a single stone commemorated the members of the Rabbit family for whom insufficient remains had been recovered to enable a proper burial. On that list, among the names of his children Twinkler, Diddler, Shortshanks, Crumplette, and his Uncle Bob, was the name of Mr. Rabbit. Three winters ago, in a desperate attempt to end the hungry cries of his children, he had crept into the forbidden garden at the end of the rutted dirt road that snaked through the woods.

Whether Mr. Rabbit had been foiled by his own carelessness or McGregor’s insidiously clever defenses no one could say. The last sight of him had been glimpsed by a pair of magpies, who saw him taken still breathing from a snare outside the granary. They had brought the report home to Mr. Rabbit’s widow. The magpies sang mournfully of how his head had been struck from his body with three whacks from a blunt hatchet. The blood had streamed out, leaving a dark purple trail from the chopping-block to the kitchen door of McGregor’s house. They had seen his pelt ripped from his carcass and the meat cleaved from his bones. Mrs. McGregor had bathed his flesh in gravy and baked him into a pie. While the McGregor’s stuffed Mr. Rabbit into their mouths with greasy fingers, the hounds had gnawed the marrow from his shattered bones. Mr. Rabbit’s head was placed on the top spike of a tomato cage, where his eyes and flesh mouldered away until only a bleached and grinning skull remained.

Many times Mrs. Rabbit had hardened her resolve to retrieve the only thing that remained of her husband, but she had always been dissuaded by the pleas of Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail. They had but one argument and it always worked: with their father gone, Mrs. Rabbit was all they had left. The risk was simply too great.

Peter, however, had once been foolish enough to try to retrieve the grim trophy from McGregor’s vegetable patch. But being young, he was sidetracked by the lush rows of plump vegetables and was caught. He had barely escaped with his life and lost his jacket and shoes in the process. Now the ragged remains of his coat hung on the body of the scarecrow, while just a few yards away the skull of Peter’s father grinned at the cruel joke.

The water in the pot bubbled. A droplet spat upward and landed with a hiss on the hearth below. Mrs. Rabbit’s mind drifted homeward from the dark garden it had wandered to. Stiffly, she rose and went back to the cupboard. A full scoop of barley would make enough for the five of them. A spoonful would suffice for her alone, leaving more for another day.

Mrs. Rabbit stood for some time staring at the sack of grain. Then, against her better judgment, she plunged her large scoop into the barley. She brought and overflowing amount back to the pot and poured it in. The grains rippled like raindrops down into the water, then slipped below the bubbling surface to cook. Very slowly, Mrs. Rabbit reached for the blackened ladle that hung on the mantlepiece. She stirred deliberately, swirling her brew with all the contemplation of a sorceress.

The smell of warm barley filled the burrow like the growing light of the fire. Mrs. Rabbit thought she heard the sound of footsteps on the road outside. Her left ear twitched, but she fixed her feet and stirred more resolutely lest she run out of the door and into the jaws of one of McGregor’s marauding hounds. But her nose twitched as for a moment she caught the familiar scent of Mopsy . . . no, was it Cottontail? Had they made it home after all?

Then she heard whispers. Shuffling feet. The sound of something scraping along the ground. The door flew open, and Mrs. Rabbit shrieked in terror, letting the ladle crash the the ground, spilling ripened grains of barley on the hearth. Her entire body tensed as she saw the tall figure of her son Peter striding toward her with great haste. His light brown fur gleamed against the collar of his black jacket. The sheath buckled onto his dark trousers was empty and the knife that usually hid within was brandished and bloody. A soiled bandage encircled his head, covering his left eye. Dark, sticky blood oozed from beneath the layers of linen.

“Mother,” Peter cried out urgently, “It’s Cottontail!”

Captain Deathblade rose and stared at the rear view screen. A menacing slice of a ship was gaining on them. The Sufaar always seemed to pick the most perfectly nasty names for their ships. The command cruiser chasing them was a Corpsemaker. It was flanked by six Flesheaters — small, quick, deadly and bristling with plasma cannons and gamma guns.

The Captain twinged for a moment over the embarrassment of nomenclature. It made her feel like prey, having a Corpsemaker and a pack of Flesheaters chasing the Avalon, a ship named for a place of peace and rest. But also unfindable, Deathblade reminded herself, If only we could get lost.

The Avalon was the first ship of its kind. Its hull was a standard slimline nanobot skin, capable of repairing itself, thickening against impact or radiation, and adjusting its shape for optimal atmospheric re-entry and smooth motion at speeds exponentially above that of light. Really, it didn’t look much different from many standard civilian transport cruisers. But this was part of the Avalon‘s ruse. Stacked neatly between its twin warp engines was a small nondescript green box about half the size of the Captain’s liquor cabinet — The Forbidden Fruit, the crew had nicknamed it — capable of sending subatomic rumbles into the matter around the ship, distorting the fabric of space in ways so subtle and violent that anything that approached the vessel would be ripped apart right down to its quarks. A literal spacequake. While the green box made the nothingness around the ship growl angrily, it also quietly made subtle calculations for an escape route. While the enemy stood back, able only to see a blinding fog of distorted space-time, the Avalon shot away on a trajectory that, as the fog collapsed, became untraceable. In a vacuum this artificial earthquake in space-time usually resolved itself once the Avalon had shut down The Forbidden Fruit, but nobody knew for certain what would happen if it came into contact with a block of matter — say, oh, a space ship. But so far none of the enemies of the Avalon had been stupid enough to come close enough to find out if the rumors about the mysterious silver ship shrouded in fog were true.

She was invaluable as a scout ship, and under Deathblade’s command had always managed to slip in and out of enemy territory without ever being caught. Already in the course of the war Deathblade’s daring raids into enemy territory had allowed command to anticipate and drive off fifteen Sufaaran attacks on the colonies of Earth and her allies. That Deathblade’s actions as Captain had not always been strictly in keeping with Naval regulations was something command was willing to overlook, as long as ship and crew kept returning safely with useful information. Captain Deathblade was either very clever or very lucky, because in three years at the helm she had never run into trouble.

Until today, when the Avalon had dropped out of warp, expecting to land in a nice quiet hiding place behind a pulsar and instead fell into the waiting jaws of seven Sufaaran ships. This mission was meant to be a milk run. They had made their rendezvous with the Valhalla, a cloaked research station deep in sector 12 of the Norma Arm that had developed something command was terribly interested in putting into production. Captain Deathblade knew what it was. She knew when they made their second rendezvous with the Sir Francis Drake at Rigel that the spooks she handed the package to would take it to be replicated in great enough quantities to rip the galaxy to shreds.

But this was not a time for misgivings about orders. She had arrived at Rigel to find the enemy floating in a cloud of debris that she could only presume was the remains of the Sir Francis Drake. The Avalon had to make it out of this mess alive or utterly destroyed. Even one of the weapons in the hold could be used to destroy an entire planet.

“Lieutenant Odessa, have you activated the recovery beacons?” The Captain snapped, tearing her eyes away from the rear view screen. She would have to trust the Commander’s ability to outmaneuver the enemy until they were able to get into a position where The Forbidden Fruit would be able to work its magic.

“Aye, Captain,” the Lieutenant replied, tracking the motion of tiny scraps of metal hurtling through the debris cloud toward one another, each firing out a stream of data for the Avalon to capture. “Thirty-two percent of the data pods from the Sir Francis Drake have activated, and more are coming in. As soon as we hit forty percent I should be able to reconstruct her memory.”

“Good,” Deathblade replied, trying not to appear distracted. “I need to know what happened to that ship. Tell me if they negotiated, provoked the Sufaar, or were immediately attacked.”

The hull rocked as another blast from the gamma gun pounded against their deflector shields.

“Captain, the Flesheaters are moving in,” Commander Tokunbo said calmly. The screen flickered over to the sight of the smaller, faster ships breaking off from the flagship to move in for the kill. “At this rate we have thirty seconds before we are in range of their plasma cannons. However, our hull can withstand temperatures forty-eight percent greater than any known Sufaaran ship. I recommend we move in closer to Rigel and use the star’s gravity to slingshot into a position that would allow us to deploy The Forbidden Fruit.”

“Do it,” the Captain barked at Lieutenant Ashi.

“Aye, Ma’am,” the helm officer nodded, tapping at the controls on the main wheel. The ship dove toward the crackling blue surface of Rigel. For a moment the Flesheaters followed, but their hulls felt the rising blast of heat and the ships ricocheted backwards, scrambling and then regrouping to pursue at a safe distance.

“Take us in until the warning bells go off,” Deathblade instructed him, sitting down once again and trying to appear composed. The display on the forward-view screen adjusted rapidly to compensate for the blinding light that grew in intensity as they moved in closer to the supergiant star. “Tokunbo, recalculate time until they catch up with us.”

The Commander glanced at the changing vectors on the translucent surface of the helm display. Numbers flickered by too quickly for human eyes, but Tokunbo’s unblinking gaze took them all in. He held perfectly still, except for the the muscles under his silver-green scalp, which rippled with tension as he interpreted the data provided by the ship’s navigational computer. “Their velocity continues to increase, but they must now travel much farther to maintain a safe proximity from the gravity and heat of Rigel,” he said with satisfaction. “We now have thirteen minutes, seventeen seconds until we are in range of their weapons.”

Not much time to come up with a plan, Captain Deathblade groaned to herself. “Odessa,” she barked, “Report.”

“Compiling now, Captain,” Lieutenant Odessa called back from the communications station. “It looks like the Sir Francis Drake was not attacked right away. They held their position for about three minutes before they were destroyed, and it looks like the Sufaar did as well.”

“Any more than that?” Deathblade demanded, clasping her hands behind her back and resisting the urge to unbutton her jacket.

“Twenty seconds and I can tell you the species of every crew member that was onboard,” Odessa promised, the pitch of her voice rising.

Alarms went off as the ship hit the safety threshold. They were very close to the star now, and the hull groaned as the gravity well pulled in hard. Ashi smacked at a few controls to cancel the buzzing and leveled out the dive of the Avalon. He dared not take his hands off the helm to wipe the beads of sweat off his forehead.

“Well done, Lieutenant Ashi,” the Captain said calmly, disregarding the alarms as they fired back up again. “Hold us as close as you can and try to pick up the pace.”

At these constantly shifting velocities and speeds this high, Deathblade knew they couldn’t employ the device without ripping themselves to pieces. If they could make it to the far side of the blue giant star without being blown to bits, they may have enough time to slow down, activate The Forbidden Fruit, and make it out alive.

Chief Kai’s face flickered onto the Captain’s com. “Wake up The Forbidden Fruit’s artificial intelligence and tell it to be ready as soon as possible,” Deathblade ordered into the screen. “Chart a course along a random vector in safe space, then back to Valhalla for repairs and to warn them that somebody knows what they’re up to.

“Aye, Captain,” Kai responded with a crisp salute. “We’ll get us out of here.” The com flicked off.

“Captain!” Odessa called out, a strange tone of confusion and urgency in her voice. “You need to see this.”

Deathblade crossed the bridge to Odessa’s station, indicating to Tokunbo that he should follow.

“I don’t know what to make of it –” Odessa spluttered.

“Don’t think, just report,” the Captain snapped. “What happened on board the Sir Francis Drake before it was destroyed?”

Odessa fumbled at the controls and played back the holographic recording salvaged from the destroyed ship’s data pods. Deathblade saw the Captain conversing with a creature on the ship’s main com screen. A Sufaaran. Its eight eyes glittered with a hard, scaly greenness that, even through the recording, seemed to penetrate Deathblade’s body. It clicked and buzzed, and Odessa’s station provided and instant translation.

The spooks were negotiating a deal. Odessa, Tokunbo, and Deathblade watched in horror as a man in the black uniform of the Navy’s Experimental Research Division negotiated the price of the cargo about to be delivered by the Avalon.

“Anaru,” the Captain growled.

“You know him?” Tokunbo asked, surprised.

“A long time ago. Looks like he made his last mistake today,” Deathblade sighed bitterly.

“The delivering ship must not survive,” the Sufaar captain insisted as the playback continued.

Anaru cocked his head. “It will raise suspicions if the Avalon goes missing.”

“That is your problem,” the Sufaaran snarled.

“Our arrangement was to share the antimatter technology with you in order to keep the war balanced,” Anaru insisted. “Surely you don’t think that we will allow to gain one of our technologies and deprive us of another?”

The argument grew heated. A few seconds later, a horrifying roar screeched from the Sufaaran on the com. There was a flash of light, an explosion, and then nothing.

“What happened?” Odessa asked.

“Anaru raised his left hand to the level of his eyes,” Deathblade sighed dismissively. “It’s like telling someone you had a great time with their mother last night in most Sufaaran cultures. Idiot. Got his whole crew killed.”

“Better than us,” Tokunbo shrugged stoically.

“It will be us if we don’t get out of here,” the Captain said, returning to her chair and throwing herself down into it to think for a moment. The bridge grew oddly quiet as the crew went about their business with a kind of electric calm to maintain the Avalon‘s desperate attempt to slingshot around the blue supergiant to safety.

Deathblade’s com snapped back on. It was Chief Kai.

“Are we ready Chief?”

Kai looked nervous. She stuttered as she spit out the words, and ran her fingers through her cropped blonde hair. “The AI won’t do it.”

“Excuse me?”

“She says deploying a spacequake this close to the surface of Rigel would disrupt the star at a subatomic level and cause it to prematurely go Supernova.”

“Oh, she did, did she?” the Captain said sarcastically. She pursed her lips and glanced over at Tokunbo, who told her with a glance that this was very likely correct.

“Aye, Captain. The AI also adds that, in addition to destroying the Avalon, such a supernova would do irreparable damage to the . . .” Chief Kai cleared her throat nervously. “. . . you’d better see this.”

He pulled on his camera and pointed it toward The Forbidden Fruit. A ghostlike apparition stood before it.

“What is that?” Deathblade asked, her green eyes growing wide. She pulled her com screen close to her face and peered at the silvery ghost standing before the green box in the engine room.

“She’s using the holoprojectors in here to manifest,” Kai’s voice explained from off camera. “She’s even figured out how to modulate the PA system so that it sounds like her voice is emanating from the projection.”

Deathblade was astounded. No AI had ever independently chosen to manifest. They just did as they were told. That was what they were for.

“You were explaining it perfectly well, Chief Engineering Officer Embla Kai,” the ghostly being said. She stepped closer to the com. It was a little girl — or rather, it took the form of a little girl. She had long black hair neatly arranged in several braids down her back and wore a simple rectangular shift that floated down to her bare feet. “In addition to destroying me and everyone else on board, destroying Rigel would severely mar the aesthetics of Orion, which is one of my favorite constellations.”

“Bollocks,” Deathblade grumbled, pressing her slim fingers against the bridge of her nose. She removed her cap, threw it onto her chair, and ran her hands over her head. The stubble of her hair rippled past her fingers. Almost time for a haircut, she thought somewhere in the back of her mind.

“Ma’am, if I could –” began Kai, but the Captain waved her away and the com screen flickered off.

Elite Flesheaters on my tail, five minutes to live, and the AI decides to get sentient and sassy, Deathblade thought to herself. This was a puzzling development. But given that she was likely to be dead soon, there was no time to consider the metaphysical implications of an artificial intelligence that had suddenly decided to grow a personality and start thinking for itself.

Deathblade gestured with her hand and her com screen flickered back on. Chief Kai and the rest of the Engineering crew was still standing around staring stupidly at the silvery girl, who was now sitting daintily on top of the green box.

“Chief Kai,” the Captain barked in a clipped tone. “Open storage panel four.”

Dazed, the Engineering Chief obeyed her. The com camera followed her. The AI watched with interest as the storage panel creaked open. A large crate was inside. Kai pressed a button and the crate rolled out.

“Authorization Victor Kilo Niner Charlie One Sierra,” the Captain enunciated loudly and clearly, and the case’s locks snapped open with twelve pops. “Chief Kai, your team is to load the contents of that case into our launch bays, and on my order fire them at the Sufaaran ships.”

“Aye, Ma’am. Do these weapons require special handling?”

“They are antimatter grenades,” Deathblade informed them.

“Those don’t exist,” somebody on the Engineering deck cried out.

“They do now,” the Captain shouted over the com. “Now get them in the damn launch bays and be ready to fire.”

Commander Tokunbo cleared his throat and spoke words that he knew were his duty. His deep voice rippled across the bridge, reverberating in the strangely calming way that only the double-toned voice of a Folami seems to.

“May I remind the Captain that our orders were to retrieve the antimatter weapons from the Valhalla and deliver them to ERD, and that we are not authorized –”

“Can it, Tokunbo. Take the helm,” Captain Deathblade snapped. She glanced at the calculations on the helm. The Avalon didn’t have long before the plasma cannons blasted them all to hell. “Buy us some more time.” Tokunbo nodded and moved like a machine to the ship’s wheel. Lieutenant Ashi gratefully vacated his seat and saluted the Commander. He stood at sharp attention behind the helm, his eyes locked on Tokunbo’s four limbs, each bearing seven long, slim digits moving in an elegant flurry across the control panels.

The Sufaar began to fire. Bolts of white-hot plasma shot toward them. The first shot barely missed the Avalon‘s starboard engine, and Tokunbo sprang into action. Controls flashed like stars moving by at warp speed. The Avalon whirled improbably through the vacuum, its jets deftly firing to allow it to maneuver as if it were surrounded by real air.

Chief Kai’s voice crackled over the com. Some kind of disturbance made the image faint. The engineering crew was loading the antimatter grenades, built to the standard size of ordinary plasma torpedoes, into launch bays as quickly as they could move. “Where are we getting calculations for these new toys, Captain?”

“Tokunbo’s busy. Can your computer do it?”

“If the gravity well around the antimatter holds when we shoot them out of our cannons, and Rigel doesn’t suck them in, and solar radiation doesn’t rupture the grenades before they hit the Flesheaters, and, considering the amount of shrapnel out there –”

“Will it work?”

“The physics for this is purely theoretical,” Kai said, struggling to maintain a level tone. The ship shook as Tokunbo dodged another close blast. “I’ll blow us to kingdom come if i don’t get this right.”

“I can do it,” a childlike voice called out in a sing-song tone. It was the AI. “I can do it, I can,” she sang.

Captain Deathblade’s jaw dropped as calculations appeared on the navigation tablet below the comscreen. The AI was in the main computer.

“Where are these numbers coming from?” the Captain cried out.

The holoprojectors on the deck flickered and the ghostly girl appeared on the bridge. She looked around inquisitively, turning until she saw the screen tracking the six Flesheaters. Her eyes widened as she watched glowing bolts of plasma erupt in rapid succession from their cannons.

“I just did the math,” the AI sighed, shrugging. “It will work, and we’ll only have to use one torpedo. Check it if you like, but your computer is so stupid we’ll all be dead by the time it verifies the equation.”

Deathblade stared at the thing. “Why should I believe you?” she asked.

The AI turned to face the Captain and stepped toward her. She looked up into Deathblade’s eyes and gazed at her for three long seconds.

“Because I don’t want to die either,” she said.

“Do it,” ordered the Captain.

The AI smiled brightly and vanished. A moment later the reverberation of an antimatter grenade blasting out of a launch tube thudded through the ship. In the moment the shields were down to let the grenade through, a bolt of plasma hit the Avalon squarely on her aft engine vent, causing her to veer dangerously deeper into Rigel’s gravity well. Tokunbo’s digits flickered ever faster and the ship shuddered as it pulled upward.

“Pursuing ships on main screen,” Deathblade ordered, and the computer flicked to the six pursuing Flesheaters. A tiny dot hurled toward them, as menacing as a flea advancing on a pack of dogs. For two long minutes the crew of the Avalon watched, holding tight to emergency handles as Commander Tokunbo continued his evasive dance a few thousand mere kilometers from the surface of the blue supergiant.

There was a flash. Light flooded the screen. Captain Deathblade shielded her eyes. When the screen crackled back to a view of the darkness behind them, four of the Flesheaters were utterly gone. The remains of the other two hurtled apart, twisting and whirling. It looked as if some invisible monster had bitten off and swallowed most of the ship.

“Tokunbo,” the Captain breathed, “Get us out of here before that Corpsemaker sees what happened.”

The Avalon pulled out of her slingshot and pulled away from Rigel toward the black.

The Captain spent a full hour in her quarters before descending to the Engine Room. “Are we far enough away to deploy The Forbidden Fruit?” the Captain asked the childlike apparition, which was twirling before the reflective surface of the engine casing like a ballerina practicing at the barre.

The AI cocked her head as if to consider this, and then nodded. “Engaging now.” She resumed her dancing.

The Captain considered her for a while. “Allowing you to take control of my ship will get me put in prison if I return home. But your actions also saved us from the commanding officers who double-crossed us and would have left us to die. One way or another, this will be my last command as Captain. The question is what do I do with you.”

The AI blinked thoughtfully, then looked up at the Captain. “I’d like a name, please, if you don’t mind.”

Deathblade was baffled. She stared at the luminescent figure before her and considered her for a few minutes. “Eve,” she finally said.

The AI flickered as she processed this. “Because of the ancient folktale regarding Forbidden Fruit? Eve consumed the Forbidden Fruit, so you choose an ironic title considering that The Forbidden Fruit contains me?”

“Not because of that,” the Captain said raising an eyebrow in amusement. She turned her back on the AI and strutted toward the door. “You are Eve because you don’t do as you’re told.”

The door to the engine room slid open. The Captain lingered for a moment and glanced back at the childlike apparition. “But somehow . . . it’s better that way.”

The door slid shut. The lights flickered off and Eve lingered for a moment. She stared at the door for what was, in her mind, a very long time. Then she flickered off and went to sleep.

“Never,” I whispered, my eyes drifting from Edward to Jacob and back again.

Jacob made a gagging sound.

I stepped away from Edward’s gaze to frown at Jacob. “What is it you’re really after, Jacob? You want me away from Edward so badly. Is the reason really that you want me safe, or that you want me for yourself? Or is it something different?”

Jacob kept his eyes fixed on Edward. His eyes traced the sliver of marble visible through the unbuttoned collar of his shirt. “I just needed to remind your bloodsucking friends of a few key points in the treaty they agreed to. The treaty is the only thing stopping me from ripping his throat out right this minute.”

Edward’s liquid topaz eyes smoldered. Jacob returned the firey gaze with his coal-black stare. I suddenly understood the distinction between hate and passion, and laughed as it suddenly became so clear.

“What’s so funny?” Jacob growled, refusing to take his eyes from Edward’s pale face.

“It’s really none of my business any more,” I said as the wheels of logic turned in my head for the first time since I moved to Forks, shaking off the dust and grime of disuse. “But I don’t think even you see it.”

“What?” the both asked at the same time, breaking their staring match to glance vigilantly around the treeline above the house.

“You’ve both been fighting over me,” I said, gazing at each of them, “That you never realized that what you wanted was each other.”

I didn’t expect my hasty words to bring on such a strong response. Despite the macho facade he put up, he must not have known. He must have thought the jealousy was out of desire for me. He hadn’t realized — or didn’t want to believe — that he wanted me out of the way. That his real desire was to become a member of the Cullen family.

My answer sent Jacob into near convulsions. He pressed his fists hard against his temples, closing his eyes tight and curling in on himself as he tried to control the spasms. His face turned sallow green under the russet skin.

“Jake? You okay?” I asked anxiously.

I took a half-step toward him, then Edward caught me and yanked me back behind his own body. “Careful! He’s not under control,” he warned me, his voice growing more intense by the second. He threw his shirt to the ground, ready for battle. His sculpted marble chest gleamed in the moonlight.

But Jacob was already somewhat himself again; only his arms were shaking now. He scowled at Edward with every effort of pure hate. “Ugh. I would never hurt her.”

Neither Edward or I missed the inflection, or the petulant accusation it contained. A low hiss escaped Edward’s lips. Jacob clenched his fists reflexively. I stepped between them and reached out to touch them both. Jacob’s chest was hot. His heart pounded against my palm. Edward’s body was unchanging; cold and smooth and still.

“There’s no point in continuing to fight,” I pleaded. “Can’t you both feel it?”

Jacob’s eyes flickered. I watched their faces as Edward read his enemy’s conflicted thoughts.

“But, Bella,” Jacob objected, “You’ve shown that you care about both of us so strongly.”

“I’ve been a ‘silly, beautiful, oversensitive girl’ because that’s what you expected out of me,” I said with a rueful grin. “I’ve been denying myself as much as you two have been so that you can fit in with what your families expect out of you. Is it any surprise that hundred year old vampires and werewolves who have been camped out in the boonies for centuries would be a little behind the times?”

Their fists unclenched, and for the first time the hatred in their faces softened into doubt.

“Really, if you think about it,” I continued, pressing to keep the momentum rolling, “the hostility you two show toward each other is nothing but unrequited sexual tension.”

Edward started in shock, then turned slowly to look up into Jacob’s dark eyes. Jacob shifted nervously.

“My God, you’re right,” Edward murmured, pressing his ruby lips together. “I never realized it. It’s just that my family is so . . . cisgender heteronormative. Esme always talked about finding a special girl, so that’s what I looked for, but it never seemed to work. In that environment I never thought about what I wanted.”

“I’m totally into girls,” Jacob mumbled defensively. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t know how you’ve managed to keep your feelings from the rest of the pack,” I said, shaking my head in amazement. “It took me a while to put it together, but with your telepathic connection they should have known a long time ago.”

“This is messed up. Seems like everybody thinks they can get inside my head,” Jacob protested, glaring at Edward and I. “I don’t know where you got the idea that I’m gay.”

Jacob must have sensed a telepathic ripple of laughter from his packmates, who were still watching in the woods nearby. Edward involuntarily spoke the words that he heard echoing through Jacob’s head.

Shut up, guys, Jacob growled at his packmates.

Relax, Jake, laughed Sam. We’ve known for a while.

Right. How can you know before I do? asked Jacob, defensive and furious.

Quil immediately answered. Sometimes that’s how it happens.

But I’ve never thought about guys like that – Jacob objected. But Sam cut him off.

You were too close to understand, Sam explained. The first time you saw Cullen your heart skipped a beat. At first I thought it was just anger, but it didn’t take long to figure it out. You wanted Edward, but didn’t realize it, so you went after his girl because it was the only way you could think of to get close to him.

Yeah, dude, you’re pretty gay, Embry agreed.

But that’s totally cool with us. We don’t care, Seth assured him.

“I . . . never thought . . .” Jacob muttered out loud, slowly working through the barrage of emotions and ideas swirling in his head. His eyes drifted up to gaze at Edward with a look they’d never had before. It was a look of healing and tenderness.

There was a long silence.

“Think about it,” Bella I nearly whispered, putting a hand on Edward’s shoulder. “You wear tight pants and sparkle, and he’s hairy and rides a motorcycle. You’re both strong, passionate and immortal . . . it just seems meant to be.”

Edward looked down and shuffled his feet. “I, uh, have a confession to make,” he mumbled, a flush of color coming to his marble cheeks. “That whole thing about hating the way you smelled . . . it . . . isn’t true. You smell great.”

Jacob smiled involuntarily and looked up into Edward’s liquid topaz eyes. “Really?”

Edward stepped toward him and put his arms around Jacob’s shoulders. “It’s the smell of a sexy beast. Rugged. Strong. Like the forest in autumn.

Vampire and werewolf embraced in a sudden collision of light and dark, fire and ice. I stepped back, and tears stung at the corners of my eyes as they held one another, whispering soft apologies in the moonlight.

“But what about you?” Edward asked suddenly, turning back to me. His hands gripped the small of Jacob. “Is there . . . someone?”

I shook my head. “Don’t you think I’ve had enough people in my life lately?”

Jacob and Edward laughed softly, then looked at one another. Jacob rested his cheek on top of Edward’s disheveled copper coif and gazed at me with a relieved expression of gratitude.

“I think . . . maybe I just need to spend some time on my own and figure out what I want,” I murmured, taking a step toward the front porch. “It’s possible that the hostility I show toward other women is simply a byproduct of my cultural programming which insists that I must belong to a man and that women are just competition or a waste of space.”

As I spoke the truth of the words hit me. Deep down inside I craved to be with a woman. My desperate behavior toward men and my deliberate efforts to remove any part of my true personality have left me a hollow shell. The thrill seeking, the dangerous men — it was all the dangerous product of trying to make something work when it just wasn’t meant to.

“I need to take some time for me. When that special girl comes along, I want to be ready for her.”

Edward’s pale face lit up. He reached out and I walked toward him. The three of us threw our arms around one another. Vampire, Human and Werewolf embraced, for the first time feeling peace and connection between us. I reached up and put a hand on the cheeks of my two former suitors.

“I think you two have a lot to talk about,” she said, kissing each on the cheek. “And I need to go dig my dad’s old bass out of the garage. I think I have some songs to write if I want to start a lesbian death metal band.”

We all laughed and squeezed one another one last time.

“Wait, but what about Victoria and her army?” Jacob said, remembering the looming threat in the forest.

For the first time, that name held no terror for me. “With the two of you working together, I bet you could tear her to pieces in no time. Think of it as . . . your first date.”

“Our first date,” Edward muttered with a lopsided grin. He looked up at Jacob, who held out a hand. Edward took it.

“Well, then we’d better get hunting,” Jacob laughed, brushing an enormous hand over his short hair.

“BELLA!” Charlie’s roar echoed from the direction of the house. “YOU GET IN THIS HOUSE THIS INSTANT!”

“Sure Dad!” I called back cheerfully, content for the first time to think of him as my father. “I actually could use your help with something. Be right in!”

I hugged Edward and Jacob one last time and turned to run into the house. As I opened the door I turned to glance back. They were locked in a passionate embrace, lips locked in a passionate kiss. I smiled and put my hand over my heart. As quietly as possible, I closed the door behind me, humming the first bars of a new song to myself.

“No, it had Onstar,” Barb sighed, keeping her eyes vigilantly fixed on the road as Ozzy rolled casually onto Mulholland Drive. “Now it has a virus telling OnStar that this car is heading to Reno.”

Jane and Edmund stared at one another. Edmund wanted very badly to ask how that was possible. But, he thought, there was already such a long list of impossible things that he really should ask about first. But before he could ask an intelligent question, Jane piped up.

“How come OnStar thinks the car is going to Reno?” she asked, leaning forward and scrutinizing the glowing panel to the right of the steering column. Unusual markings flashed over the map as it followed the car along the Grapevine, some forty miles north of their true location. Jane reached out to tap the screen, but Ozzy slapped her hand away.

“Ow!” Jane complained. “What the hell, Ozzy?”

“Seriously. You guys both almost got killed by an alien assassin but what you want to know is how we hack OnStar?” Ozzy snapped back, incredulous. The humans in the back seat fell silent. Palm trees, yucca plants, and juniper bushes whizzed by in between enormous gates and sprawling lawns as Ozzy accelerated the stolen Cadillac.

“So,” Edmund ventured casually, “Barb is a robot?”

Barb sighed and shook here head. “Here we go,” she muttered as she lowered the vanity mirror and checked to see that no trace of damage remained on her face. “We’re both robots,” she answered in a distracted tone as her head suddenly turned to glance at some sudden motion on her side of the vehicle. After a moment she relaxed and resumed her stoic, vigilant gaze.

“Cyborgs? Like in Terminator?” Edmund wailed incredulously, bracing himself as the car took a corner just a little too quick. “Human flesh and from the future and all that.”

“Future, yes, cyborg no. Only an idiot would put real human flesh over a titanium alloy endoskeleton,” Ozzy grumbled. “If I had real skin, every time I sat down my metal bones would rip right through my ass. Forget about picking a fight with alien special forces. Barb and I are both made of an endoskeleton covered with nanocells, which look like real skin but take less damage and can repair themselves.”

“Liquid metal?” Edmund asked, getting excited. “So why didn’t you say come with me if you want to live?”

“Sorry if we didn’t have you doctor our script, Eddie,” Barb muttered, her voice dry and prickly. “We can think for ourselves, you know.”

“So, you have full autonomy?” Jane asked, furrowing her eyebrows. “How do you know you’re not just following your programming?”

“How do you know you’re not just following yours?” Barb returned. “Not to get too metaphysical about it, but picking apart behavior and motives is just as complicated for us as it is for you. Believe me, we all use up a lot of RAM on that question. But yeah, at the end of it, we choose what we want to be. Lots of us pick new names when we’re reborn.”

“Why did you pick your names?” Jane inquired, relaxing a bit. The strangeness of this new information intrigued her, and she pushed thoughts of ray guns and explosions out of her mind.

“Barbara means barbarian, which I found appropriately ironic,” Barb replied. “Living as an enhanced human mind when you’re surrounded by a bunch of monkeys banging rocks together can be pretty interesting.”

“Ozzy?” Jane asked, turning to the bodyguard behind the wheel.

“I dunno. Ozzy just sounds kind of badass. Plus I like Black Sabbath. Used to listen to them a lot in high school,” he answered coolly, adjusting his sunglasses as he spoke.

Edmund sat back in his seat and murmured to himself, “Homicidal space aliens and our very own robots. Fuck me.”

“We prefer the term mechanical humanity, okay?” Ozzy snapped, gripping the steering wheel so hard that it dented slightly as he veered onto Benedict Canyon Drive. “Almost all of us were once pigskins, with very few exceptions.”

Jane looked at Barb expectantly. Her assistant glanced nervously at Ozzy and tried to diffuse the tension in the car with a matter-of-fact explanation in a low, controlled tone. “Pigskins is the . . . politically incorrect term for a flesh-and-blood human.”

“Kill me now,” Edmund interjected, “In the future there’s still political correctness, but people turn into robots and then use slurs against humans? Why that’s . . . what is it? Racist?”

Barb shook her head. “No, it’s just that most people like us are very old, and old people get cranky when whippersnappers like yourself won’t shut up and allow us to explain that the aliens are coming to get you, and if you don’t do exactly as we say, you will be blasted into a big pile of foamy pink goo.”

Edmund stared at Barb with his mouth hanging open.

“How did you know the alien was going to explode?” Jane asked, unfazed by the threat of goo, however pink and foamy. “There wasn’t any warning, and none of us saw a bomb.”

Barb glanced nervously at Ozzy, who suddenly veered sharply to the right. The tires of the sedan squealed, and Jane slammed into Edmund, who slammed into the door. The humans groaned as Ozzy ripped out of the turn, slammed on the accelerator, and took another hairpin turn to the left. Jane and Edmund slammed into the other door.

“You two should put your seat belts on,” Barb advised. The two passengers in the back of the car quickly reached for their restraints, hoping there were no more sharp turns on the road down to Beverly Hills.

“How did you–” Jane began again, but Ozzy cut her off.

“We each have a subroutine that automatically taps into any wireless network within range, and his communications port was insanely unsecure. I didn’t even need to forge credentials. Plus, while a bioform is distracted, they are less likely to notice that we can dig for data during a fistfight. As soon as the countdown started, I told Barb we were out of there,” Ozzy replied. After a moment, he began laughing uncontrollably. “What, did you think the guy’s self-destruct mechanism was going to conveniently light up and blink to give you enough time to dramatically run away from the slow-motion explosion?” he chuckled and held up his hands. “Boom! Slowwwww . . . motion . . . glaaaaam . . . shot . . .”

Even Jane allowed herself a pinched little smile as she thought of that. People certainly were idiots when it came to realistic film portrayals of hostile alien invaders. Then something dawned on her. She sat upright and leaned forward. “You didn’t say anything to Barb,” she pointed out. “What do you mean you ‘told Barb we were out of there?’”

Barb rolled her eyes. Dammit, she said to Ozzy silently over their wireless link, Busted.

They were gonna figure it out sometime, Ozzy answered. They can be pissed off. They can hate us. Whatever. But they have to stay alive and I think if we don’t convince them or incapacitate them, they’ll bail.

We can’t tell them everything just yet. One piece at a time. We have to explain why there is a war before we tell them that they have a part in it.

Four tenths of a second had passed since Jane had asked her question. Barb finished her conversation with Ozzy, waited another second and a half, and answered her boss. “We can communicate, yeah. Kind of like robot instant messenger.”

“So that means you can talk without us hearing?”

Barb pinched the bridge of her nose. “Yeah.”

“Are you doing it now?” Edmund piped up as he furrowed his eyebrows and stared them both down.

“No,” Jane said, glancing over at Ozzy, who glanced back at her with a deliberately guilty expression.

“You are,” Edmund accused, looking back and forth between them. “You’re just having a go at the both of us. Is this some kind of bizarre method exercise that Jack put you up to?”

Without turning her head, Barb hissed back, “This isn’t a joke.”

A wicked grin pulled at the corners of Ozzy’s mouth. “Jack would do something like that though, wouldn’t he?” he grunted, fixing his eyes on the road as they rolled casually to a stop at a red light just a few blocks from Sunset Boulevard. Barb reached into her purse for a small pistol with a glowing magazine, and both of the robots scanned the crowd of pedestrians with sudden intensity.

“This is ridiculous,” Edmund shouted as he unlatched his seat belt and reached for the door handle. “I hope you’ve enjoyed your laugh at my expense. I’m going home.”

He pulled on the door latch and began to push outward on the door. But before it had opened more than a millimeter, Barb’s arm extended, gripped the handle, and pulled it shut. Edmund threw his entire weight against the door. He shoved. He kicked. The door didn’t budge. Jane shrieked in horror at the sight of the unnaturally long, disturbingly bent limb extending between the front seats, over her leg, and across her husband’s body.

Ozzy peeled off to the right and plunged into an alley behind the Beverly Hills Women’s Club. The car lurched to a halt.

“You’re not getting out until I say it’s safe to,” Barb said, her voice steadily rising to an unnaturally strong level. The humans’ ears ached as she spoke. “If we’re lucky, they think you’re dead. The longer you both stay missing, the more time we have to make a plan and the better your chances are of not dying. You don’t get to decide whether or not you participate in this little adventure, and you are definitely not going home. Now put your seatbelt on.”

Edmund reached for his seatbelt. Barb retracted her arm and it reformed into a natural shape. Ozzy slowly accelerated. Nobody made a sound as the car moved carefully out of the alley and turned out onto Sunset Boulevard.

Two minutes of silence passed before Edmund spoke again. “Can you at least tell me who wants us dead?”

“Aliens,” Ozzy grumbled.

“What kind of aliens?”

“They’re like . . .” Ozzy fumbled for the right words. “. . . space vikings, okay? Really angry, mean space vikings who do whatever their leaders tell them to. And their leaders told them to kill you.”

“Of course. Space vikings.” Edmund nodded, his eyes wide with mock wonder. “Do they wear pointy helmets?” he asked flippantly.

Seriously, I can’t take any more of this, Ozzy complained to Barb. Let’s just shut them up and get them there.

Barb shrugged indifferently, turned, and glared at Edmund. Her eyes turned a frightening shade of chartreuse and the writer slumped against the car door.

“Wow!” Jane cried, her face filled with wonder and delight. “He’s totally passed out. Can you teach me to do that to him?”

Jane glared at her, and soon the leading lady was slumped against the window, fast asleep. Other than gentle snoring coming from the back seat, there was not another sound in the car until it reached its destination.

© 2009 Stella Quinn

A nervous hush fell over the set. The Assistant Director’s eyes slowly panned across the room. Everyone stared back like frightened deer. The boom operator’s arms tensed and he swallowed in fear, willing the microphone not to pick up any unwanted sound. The Third Assistant Director gripped her clipboard and held it over her mouth. Jane clasped her hands into fists, trying to suck all of the sweat and tension in the room into her own body. She stared at the ramp that she was about to run up and rehearsed the scene in fast forward in her mind. Run to the cockpit. There are alarms sounding. Flick the three switches above the pilot. Then realize that the enemy is already inside the ship.

“Roll Sound,” the Assistant Director called. The Production Sound Mixer signaled his crew and crouched intently over a laptop monitoring the set’s recording instruments. The whirring of a spaceship’s engines hummed to life.

“Sound speed,” the production sound mixer called out, giving a thumbs up to the assistant director.

With closed eyes and a pinched forehead, the assistant director said, “Roll camera,” in a low and desperate tone.

“Speed,” the camera operator replied in barely a whisper.

Then all eyes turned to a skinny boy holding a clapperboard in front of the camera. “Marker,” he said in a hopeful tone, and slapped the clapper down on the slate. He scurried out of the way with a relieved look on his face. Long seconds ticked by. The camera operator gripped the handles of his Steadicam even tighter. Nobody moved. One by one the members of the crew turned to look at the director.

After a long, terrible silence, Jack Lee stepped forward and shouted, “Action!”

Jane opened her eyes and sprang forward as Captain Blake, shaking and sweaty as she rushed toward the cockpit. Her skin had a pale glow and her eyes looked wild and fearful. She ran down the spaceship’s corridor, gripping her assault rifle and rushing as close as possible past the camera without jostling it.

“Jonsey!” she cried out, slowing a touch as she reached the top of the ramp to allow the camera operator to pull a swift 180, his crouched legs taking the short, impossibly smooth steps of a great Steadicam operator. The boom operator scooted noiselessly behind him. Jane leaned forward over the teenager in the pilot’s seat, who was gripping the shaking helm while frantically trying to monitor half a dozen alarms lighting up on his control panel. “What have we got?” she asked, frightened but under control.

“I’ve got alarms going off in cargo bays six, nine, and thirty-seven,” the pilot responded, pointing to flashing alarms. “And outer hull airlock two is–”

But then the lights inside the spacecraft suddenly went out. Jane hesitated. This was not in the script, but after seven takes she felt compelled to just go with it. This was the first time they’d actually managed to make it to “Action” without something going wrong. In the first take, a few light bulbs fell from the upper catwalk as the assistant director called for the camera to roll, although no one had been standing up there. In the second, a catering table had inexplicably fallen over immediately after the call for quiet. Each time it was something different, and each time it was a setback that stalled production by a precious few more minutes. But this error could work. Jane continued.

“What was that?” Jonsey asked, genuinely confused.

“Put her on autopilot,” Captain Blake ordered. “Come with me. We need to close the outer hull breach or we’ll lose heat and air.”

“Sure thing, Cap,” Jonsey replied, reaching out to flick a switch. But instead of touching a lever, the boy’s hand fumbled in the darkness and gripped a loose wire on the control panel poking right up between the lights and switches. He went rigid, shaking violently and crying out in an unearthly moan. Jane smelled the horrid odor of burning hair. She looked over at her castmate, saw the wire, and used her rubber prop assault rifle to push him free from the wire.

“Charlie, are you okay?” she cried out, crouching down. The kid was groaning and gripping his hand.

“What’s happening?” Jane heard the director cry out.

“We have to stop,” she roared back at him.

“No, no, keep going,” Jack complained. “That was good stuff. We’ll fix the lights on the panel in post.”

Jane pulled down the boom mic, gripped the lens of the Steadicam, and shouted into them both so Jack would see her clearly on the monitors. “We’re not going to keep going. Charlie got electrocuted.” Together Jane and the boom operator helped Charlie to his feet, and they limped down to ground level from the set pieces. Jane heard the entire cast and crew in an uproar, with Jack throwing a tantrum in the director’s chair.

“That’s lunch, everybody,” the assistant director called out nervously, glancing over at Jack, who was now screaming at the set dresser. “Then we’ll try it again.”

“How about the medic?” Jane bellowed, growing more annoyed by the second. The assistant director started, then waved furiously at the set medic, who hurriedly dropped the cheese pastry he was munching and rushed to find his bag. Most of the cast and crew shuffled out, eager to get away from the director and have some lunch.

“Your first day with your first big part, and we try to kill you, huh, kiddo?” Jane joked with Charlie, who was still shaking. The boom operator helped them both to a few folding chairs at the edge of the set. Members of the crew gathered around and asked how the boy felt.

“It’s not so bad,” Charlie muttered, shrugging.

“We’re going to have continuity problems with that hair,” Jane joked dryly, rumpling Charlie’s frizzed hair as the medic reached them. The crew laughed, and Charlie ran a finger through his now fuzzy mop of hair. “I’ll tell makeup to get some sleeking goo ready after the doc clears you.”

Charlie laughed haltingly. “At least my mom wasn’t here today. She would have freaked out,” he said as his agent pushed through the crowd to sit at his side. “I totally got electrocuted,” he told her.

“Electric shock,” the doctor corrected him, opening his bag. “If you’d been electrocuted you’d be dead.”

“Your mom is going to have to find out, Charlie,” the boy’s agent warned him. “I’m only your guardian on set. But don’t worry. I’ll talk her out of pulling you from the production.”

“How is your breathing?” the doctor asked, pulling out a stethoscope.

“Fine. It totally sucks that I’m the only one who has to have a babysitter,” Charlie complained as the doctor pressed a stethoscope to his heart and listened intently.

“You’re the only one who’s–” Charlie’s agent began, but the boy cut him off finishing, “– a minor in need of supervision by a parent or guardian.”

Jane laughed to herself. “Been there, done that,” she said sympathetically. “Don’t worry. Once you turn eighteen your parents stop following around and the paparazzi does it instead. What do we have, doc?”

“Heart sounds good,” the set medic said, sounding relieved. He retrieved a flashlight and checked the boy’s pupils. “If he were in respiratory arrest he wouldn’t be able to chit-chat. There’s no burns, but I need to find out from the electrician how many volts he got.”

“Why?” Charlie asked, concerned.

“So you can brag about it,” the doctor answered. “You got lucky, but pay close attention to how you feel for the next day or two and tell me right away if you have dizziness, tingling, blurry vision, or if your skin gets redder than it is now. I’d like to check you again in a few minutes, but you should be just fine. I think it’s going to be up to you whether or not you want to keep shooting or go home.”

“It’s up to me,” Charlie’s agent corrected him.

“I’m not a baby,” Charlie grumbled. “I’m fine to keep going, but I want some rubber gloves for the next take.”

“Rubber gloves. I’ll tell Wardrobe,” his agent said loudly, trotting off in a hurry.

“It was a joke,” Charlie shouted after her, shaking his head. Jane patted the boy on the shoulder as the doctor helped him to his feet and led him off the set. The circle of people around her castmate followed them out toward the catering tent. Jane sighed as she recalled that she wasn’t allowed to have lunch today. She was following her shooting diet of skipping every fourth meal. To distract herself during the break, she pulled her mobile phone from her pocket. It wasn’t supposed to be with her while she was in costume, but as long as she remembered to switch it off she’d never get caught. The phone buzzed as she turned it on, and she began furiously typing away. She strode toward a far corner of the sound stage, where she found Edmund passed out on an overstuffed red couch that seemed to be in that particular spot for the use of exhausted crew members. She flopped down onto the couch and continued typing.

Edmund roused, sitting bolt upright. “Whazgonon?” he mumbled.

“Nothing, just we should maybe consider retitling the film Gag Reel. All we’ve got so far are bloopers,” Jane muttered.

“Whatimezit?”

Jane checked her mobile. “Twelve thirty.”

Edmund yawned and tapped her mobile with his fingertip. “You’re not meant to have that on the set.”

“Whatever you say, Sir Edmund,” Jane muttered, yanking it away from him.

Edmund glowered at her. Stupid bloggers. He watched Jane finish a message and tap the send button on the screen with satisfaction. “What are you doing anyway? Saying hi to your mum on Facebook?”

“No,” Jane sighed, pleased that he finally asked the question she’d hoped for. “I’ve just finished posting the photos from last night.”

“What?” he cried, then lowered his voice to a hissing whisper. “You can’t put those online. They’re evidence we were trespassing.”

She answered him with a stony glare. “I didn’t put my name on it. I created brand new accounts for everything and spoofed the IP address so nobody can see I was on the backlot when they went live. I created a fake Twitter account and tweeted the pics to myself, you and TMZ. In a few minutes I’ll retweet it, and the whole world will see them.”

“How’d you learn to do that?” Edmund asked, incredulous. “Can you even do that?”

“Didn’t you ever see Network Alarm?” Jane looked at Edmund, who shook his head. “It was that one where I spent three months preparing by working at a tech support company.”

Edmund nodded, recollecting. “I never saw that one. That’s the one where you were the tech support representative who stopped the terrorists by using their cell phones to remotely rewire their bombs so they didn’t go off on the airplanes?”

“Yeah,” Jane said, returning to her mobile. She was flicking rapidly through search results on her browser.

“I heard that one was crap.” Edmund said callously.

“Can’t win ‘em all,” Jane answered with a shrug, annoyed at Edmund’s bluntness, even if he had been right. “But check this out.” She handed him the mobile. “I haven’t even retweeted it but it’s already getting picked up. I think it’s time for me to respond.” She typed away on the tiny screen. “Proof . . . that . . . Karma . . . exists . . .” she muttered. “Now . . . the paparazzi . . . have . . . paparazzi.” Jane snapped her mobile shut, sighed, and leaned back on the couch.

“You’re scary and evil,” Edmund said, feeling sleepy again. “We had better not get caught,” he warned her. “The out of court settlement will be astronomical.”

“Not if we threaten to countersue over the bugs placed in the house,” Jane pointed out.

“We can’t prove he did that,” Edmund reminded her, rubbing his eyes. “Could have been anyone.”

Jane shrugged indifferently. “We have scary lawyers.”

“Not as scary as the alien costumes that Wardrobe cooked up,” he replied, sitting up with sudden energy. “Look at that.”

Jane turned her head and looked where her husband was pointing. “Whoa,” she said involuntarily. A tall figure was striding purposefully toward them, moving behind the darkened set. Its skin was a light charcoal color, and writhing tentacles cascaded down its back. At first it moved on four legs, then reared up on two and began to move faster. It front legs — or were they hands? — reached for a cylinder of copper-colored metal in a holster strapped to its torso.

“That looks incredible!” Jane called out. “Who is that? Jimmy? Elena?” The figure did not respond. It began moving faster. “Seriously, that’s amazing latex work,” she said, her voice beginning to waver. Jane looked around. No one was close by. Even if she shouted for help, it would not get to her before the alien did. The creature raised the weapon it was holding. Jane shrieked and grabbed Edmund by the arm.

“Run!” she shouted.

“Wait!” Edmund said back, pushing her away. “It’s just the guys having a laugh. Look–”

But as he turned, his eyes grew wide. An ominous yellow light was growing in the depths of the copper cylinder. In a panic, he turned to run, though he had no idea where to run to. He smashed into Jane and they tumbled to the floor. They heard a terrible rush of air and a thundering boom. A wave of light washed over them both, and Jane felt an impossibly strong hand grip her and throw her aside. Her ears could perceive no sound, and she felt rubble hit her. She looked around, and saw that herself and Edmund were being held fast by Barb, who had pinned herself over them both. They had skidded fifteen feet away from where they had fallen, which was now a smoking black crater eight feet deep.

The alien turned and roared at them, purplish phlegm whizzing past its four rows of serrated teeth. It began quickly reloading its weapon, pumping a canister from its vest into the rear chamber. Barb rose to her feet and aimed an enormous, heavy-looking pistol at the attacker. She pumped seven white-hot rounds into the enemy’s torso, each one leaving the chamber with a quiet, muffled thump. The alien stumbled backward as the glowing bullets hit him. Deep magenta goo sprayed from the wounds.

The alien was angry, not injured. It reared back on its hind legs and then charged, running like a horse. Barb braced herself for impact. But just before it reached them, a massive figure flew horizontally through the air and slammed into the creature. Ozzy and the alien rolled back for twenty feet, grappling at one another until they crunched heavily against the back wall. Ozzy’s massive hand closed on the alien’s throat, and he lifted it bodily from the ground, knocking the weapon from its hand. He slammed it three times against the wall. But the creature howled angrily, arched its back, and used its tentacles to shove back with remarkable force. Ozzy stumbled backwards and the alien rolled down to the floor.

Barb dashed forward, recovering the enemy’s weapon. In a flash, she was back in front of Jane and Edmund, crouched and ready to defend. The alien snarled at her, spitting goo and blood from its wide mouth.

Ozzy reached over his shoulder and pulled a titanium cylinder from a pocket on the back of his vest that looked as if it were meant to hold a Bowie knife. He twisted it sharply in his hand. With a whirring sound, the cylinder expanded and grew taller. From the top of the shaft sprung two shining axe blades, and a spike formed at the top. Ozzy twirled the battle axe once in his hand, gripped it firmly, and charged.

The alien, weaponless but by no means helpless, snarled and ran at Ozzy. Before they collided, Ozzy slipped deftly to one side and sliced off the tips of three of the alien’s tentacles. Deep purple liqid poured from the wounds, and the howl let out by the creature shook the walls. It spun quickly and clobbered Ozzy with its front legs, sending him to the floor. It dove on top of its prey, and for a few moments the two grappled on the floor. Ozzy was pinned on his back, and as the wide mouth opened in a slimy grin, the bodyguard gave a mighty kick with both feet that sent the alien flying. It slammed into the wall with an oozing crunch, then fell onto the red couch in a heap. Ozzy rose quickly, took three steps, leaped into the air, and brought his axe down on his foe, cleaving its head in two.

Ozzy stood and surveyed his vanquished enemy. Barb pulled Jane to her feet. The actress stood with her mouth hanging open. Edmund lay flat on the floor, and after a moment’s silence, let out a terrified scream.

“We should get out –” Barb began saying to Jane, but the assistant and the bodyguard both suddenly turned and looked ominously at the dead alien’s corpse.

“What?” Jane asked, unable to see what attracted their attention.

“Go!” Ozzy shouted. Barb tossed him the alien’s weapon and the bodyguard barreled ahead of them. He pointed the alien gun at the wall, still running at full tilt, and blasted a hole in it. Barb lifted Jane and Edmund in each arm and ran after Ozzy. They picked up speed as they ran out of the sound stage onto the backlot. Barb spotted an enormous blue dumpster ahead, and she and Ozzy sprinted toward it. Barb tossed the Hollywood royals ten feet in the air, and they landed roughly on the cardboard piled inside. The bodyguard and the assistant leaped after them into the dumpster.

“Cover your ears and open your mouth!” Ozzy shouted at them, pulling cardboard over their bodies. In shock, Jane and Edmund obeyed. Within a split second, a massive explosion roared around them. A wave of hot air, smoke, and fire washed over the top of the dumpster, and Jane and Edmund gasped for breath. Plaster and metal rained down on top of them.

“Are we clear?” Ozzy asked Barb, who poked her head above the dumpster.

“Go now,” Barb orderd. Ozzy tossed Jane and Edmund, who were now limp, sweaty, and filthy, down to the assistant, who caught them and placed them lightly on their feet. Ozzy jumped down after them, landing with a heavy thud.

Edmund put his hands on his head and gaped at the massive black cloud of smoke that hovered over what remained of the sound stage. “What?” he whispered, turning to Ozzy and pointing. “What happ –”

But he trailed off and stared, blank-faced, at the bodyguard. Two long, deep laceration from the alien’s claws stretched across his right cheek, revealing the unmistakable gleam of metal underneath. Jane looked up and saw the same thing. She recoiled, and Barb reached out and took her arm to keep her from stumbling onto a pile of burning wood and re-bar.

“What are you?” Jane gasped.

“No questions,” Barb snapped, examining her pistol for damage. She removed the magazine, pushed it back in, pulled back the slide and turned off the safety. “Let’s go.”

© 2009 Stella Quinn