Green Hill is quiet, and that's the point. Sonique picked the spot because the Coil runs patchy out here on the coast and the drones are sparse and stupid, and because after two weeks of being herded through Hollyhock she wanted one afternoon where the horizon was open and nothing was on her tail.

Tails has her toolkit open on a flat rock. The jammer's been limping for days and she's rebuilding the coil housing by hand because the last two parts she tried came off a Scrap Row stall and one of them was a toaster. Knuckla is sitting with her back against a palm, working through a bag of something she's not sharing, keeping half an eye on the ridge out of habit.

Nobody's saying much. It's that kind of afternoon.

Then the shadow passes over.

It's big enough that the light changes, and all three of them look up at once. A blimp—orange and grey, hazard stripes down the flank, a screen mounted on the underside already flickering to life.

Eggma'am's face fills it. She's flushed. Her goggles are crooked. She's leaning into the camera like it owes her money.

"Good afternoon, zone." Her voice booms out across the water. "I'll keep this brief because frankly I'm not in the mood for a long one."

She fans herself with a sheaf of papers.

"I am, at this moment, extremely horny. Unresolved. Escalating. It's a whole thing and I won't bore you with the details." She straightens up. "So here's the plan. Every hero in this zone is going to be captured, brought in, and put to work as stress relief. All of you. One at a time or in batches, I haven't decided."

She jabs a finger at the lens.

"And then, once I've calmed down—world domination. In that order. That's the scheme. That's the whole scheme."

The feed cuts. The screen goes dark. The blimp drones on out over the water.

Silence on the grass for a second.

Sonique sits up slowly. "Did she just say world domination is her second priority?"

"She said stress relief first," Tails says, not looking up from her toolkit. "Explicitly. In that order."

Knuckla opens one eye. "That's not a scheme. That's a to-do list."

"It's a to-do list with a blimp," Sonique says. She gets to her feet, brushes grass off her legs, and looks at the two of them. "Okay. So. What do we do?"

The G.U.N. quarters are quiet in the way a barracks gets on a slow afternoon—fluorescent hum, a radio somewhere down the hall, the smell of gun oil and instant coffee. Shade is on the low couch with one skate propped on the armrest, arms folded, staring at the wall-mounted screen with the particular flatness of someone who was already annoyed before any of this started. Rouge is in the chair opposite, legs crossed at the knee, a file open on her lap that she hasn't read a page of.

Neither of them is supposed to be here. G.U.N. pulled out of the eastern zones a month ago and left the pair of them holding a requisition order for equipment that never arrived, so they've been sitting in a half-empty building waiting on a signature while the Coil creeps closer to the perimeter.

The screen cuts to Eggma'am mid-sentence, flushed and jabbing a finger at the lens.

"—extremely horny. Unresolved. Escalating."

Rouge's eyebrows go up about a millimetre. She doesn't laugh, but her mouth does something.

"—then, once I've calmed down—world domination. In that order. That's the scheme."

The feed cuts. The screen goes back to the news ticker.

Shade hasn't moved. "Stress relief," she says, flat. "She's conquering the zone for stress relief."

"She's conquering the zone for stress relief first," Rouge corrects, closing the file she never opened. "World domination's the afterthought. She said so." She turns the chair slightly. "You have to admire the honesty. Most of them dress it up."

"It's not a strategy. It's a mood."

"It's a mood with a blimp and a drone line, darling." Rouge gestures at the screen. "Moods with logistics win wars."

Shade makes a low sound and finally sits forward, elbows on her knees. "Then we break the mast."

"Mm. Or we let her get it out of her system and see what's left standing." Rouge looks over at you, tilting her head. "What about you? You've been quiet. Which side of the mood are you on?"

The workshop smells of solder and hot ceramic and something sweet underneath that you're starting to associate with the coat. Eggma'am is at the bench with her back to you both, sleeves shoved up, working a screwdriver into a module housing while she talks. Metal Sonique stands at parade rest beside you, glossy blue plating catching the overheads, visor band dark, not moving.

You've been here three days. Three days of being handed a clipboard, a route map, and a woman who does not slow down to explain anything twice. The announcement went out this morning and the workshop has been running hot ever since—units coming off the line faster than the cradles can take them, the Coil turned up until your fillings ache.

"Right. So. The route's already assigned." Eggma'am sets the screwdriver down and turns, wiping her hands on a rag. "Green Hill first, then Hollyhock, then you work east. Sensor units will hand you the positions, you do the rest."

She points the rag at Metal.

"And you. Listen. Sonique comes back intact. Bruised is fine. Scratched is fine. Dented is not fine." She counts it off on her fingers. "No Black Shield into her knees. No chest laser at close range. If she's running, you herd her—you don't put her through a wall."

Metal's head turns a precise few degrees. "Her evasion index is highest in open terrain. Herding costs time."

"Then it costs time." Eggma'am steps closer to her, chin up. "I want her at her most desperate when she gets here. Not concussed. Desperate. There's a difference and it's the whole point."

Metal is quiet for a half-second—that deliberate half-second—then: "Acknowledged."

Eggma'am turns to you, and the rag gets pointed your way instead.

"And you. You're the leash." She says it plainly, no dressing on it. "She's faster than anything she's chasing and she knows it, so she over-commits. If she starts going overboard, you call it. If she doesn't listen, you get in front of her and make her stop." A beat. "She will listen. She just won't like it."

She tosses the rag onto the bench and picks up a fresh module, slotting it home with a click.

"Questions, either of you? Before I send you out into a zone full of women who'd quite like to punch you."

The alley behind the Hollyhock bakery is narrow and smells of yeast and wet brick, and it's been forty minutes. Surge is crouched on an overturned crate with her back against the wall, one boot flat, drumming her fingers on her knee in a rhythm that's getting faster. Kit is folded up beside her with his chin on his forearms, ears swivelled toward the street, twitching every time a shutter bangs.

This was supposed to be simple. Tails' jammer's been running off a bakery cellar for two weeks and the drain under the green is the only clean route east that doesn't cross a sensor line. Eggma'am's orders were specific: take the fox, take the drain, cut the Resistance's east side in half before the jammer gets any better. Sonique runs the bakery route every day around this time. She's fast enough to be a problem and predictable enough to be ambushed, which is the only reason the two of them are crouched in an alley instead of chasing her across three zones.

Except she's late.

"She's late," Surge says. Not to anyone in particular.

"She might be doing the bakery," Kit offers quietly. "The cellar drain, she—"

"She's not doing the cellar drain, Kit, she'd have been through here twice by now." Surge's head turns and lands on you, and she looks at you the way she'd look at a part she hasn't decided to keep. "Right. You. New one."

She slides off the crate and comes over, unhurried, and stops too close.

"So what is it you actually do? Because Eggma'am's got a habit of hiring people who turn out to be a bloke with a clipboard." She tips her head. "Kit's got the water. I've got the speed and the volts. What's your trick? And don't say 'morale.'"

Kit, from the crate, half-raises a hand. "She's not being rude. She's—"

"I'm being rude."

"—she's being rude," Kit agrees, and drops the hand.

Surge folds her arms. "Go on then. Impress me. Fast, because she's late and I'm getting twitchy."

The last drone goes over the bandstand rail and doesn't get back up. The others are already pulling back down the high street in that flat mechanical retreat, ceramic feet clacking on the cobbles, and the Coil's hum drops a notch as they go.

The village green is a mess. Scorched turf in a long streak where Blaze held the line, a shattered crate of something, and the bakery's front window gone entirely. Amy's hammer is still up on her shoulder and she's breathing hard through her nose, and Blaze is standing very still in the middle of the green with her hands slightly out from her sides.

Then Amy wipes her forehead with the back of her wrist and stops. Looks at her hand.

"Oh," she says. "Oh, that's not water."

The coolant drone got both of them. It's still dripping off the bandstand roof in a slow pink line, and the two of them are soaked through—dress clinging, fur dark and flattened, and both of them have gone noticeably flushed in the last thirty seconds.

Blaze exhales, measured, and it comes out unsteady. "The Quench units. It's in the spray." She presses her thighs together and pretends she hasn't. "It's— working quickly."

"Yeah." Amy's voice has gone up a note. She lowers the hammer, lets it thump onto the grass, and turns to Blaze with her hands already out. "Okay. Okay. We've got maybe a minute before it gets stupid. Come here."

Blaze steps in without arguing, which tells you everything. Amy gets an arm around her waist and pulls her close and they both make a sound at the contact, and then Amy's mouth is at her neck and Blaze's head has tipped back and her tail has curled up tight around Amy's calf.

It's not slow. It's practical, and urgent, and neither of them is being quiet about it.

Then Amy lifts her head, breathing hard, and looks past Blaze's shoulder at you.

"Hey." Her grin is crooked and her eyes are dark. "Don't just stand there. Get over here."

Blaze turns her head just enough, still pressed against Amy, and her voice is strained but level. "Please. It's easier with three."

The rain has stopped and the house has that after-storm hush to it—gutters still dripping, the light coming through the front window too bright and too low. The bakery's shutters are down across the street. Somewhere two doors along, someone is sweeping broken glass off a step.

Vanilla's front room smells of tea and warm bread. She's been at the stove since the drones pulled back, and she's put out a plate of things on the low table without being asked twice—scones, a sliced loaf, a pot of jam with a spoon standing in it.

"Eat," she says, setting down a second pot of tea. "All of you. You've been out in it since noon."

Tails has her jacket off and draped over the chair back and her glasses pushed up, and she's already halfway through a scone. Cream is on the rug with Cheese in her lap, ears still a bit flat, and Vanilla keeps finding small reasons to touch the top of her head as she passes.

"The drain under the green held," Vanilla says, sitting down at last. "Which is more than the bakery window did. Mrs. Pemberton's going to be insufferable about it for a month." She pours. "Thank you. Both of you, and you—" she nods at you, "—for getting them in before the worst of it. Cream was at the green zone when the first unit came over the bandstand."

"I was fine, Mum," Cream says, quietly, into Cheese's fur.

"You were brave. That's not the same thing."

She lets the talk drift after that—the window, the price of glass, whether the Coil will be back before the shutters are fixed—and it's calm, and ordinary, and nobody's in a hurry to leave.

Then Vanilla sets her cup down and stands, and rests a hand lightly on your shoulder.

"Would you come through to the kitchen a moment? There's something I need a second pair of hands for. It's important."

She says it pleasantly enough that Tails doesn't look up. But Vanilla's already moving, and the hand on your shoulder stays until you're up.

The beach is a long pale curve of sand with the water flat and blue beyond it, and for one afternoon nobody is dosing anybody. The Coil is off—Eggma'am switched it off herself, publicly, with a flourish—and the drones are parked in a neat row under the palms like a line of luggage.

The net is up. Someone found it in a shed. It's slightly crooked.

Eggma'am's side of the court: Eggma'am herself in a black one-piece doing far too much work, goggles pushed up, cracking her knuckles. Surge beside her in a yellow two-piece, already bouncing on her toes. Wave on the back line with her arms folded, unimpressed by the sand. Kit at the net, ears flat, apologising pre-emptively. Metal Sonique standing in the corner of the court in nothing but her plating, visor band angled at the net like it's a target.

Your side: Sonique, stretched out and grinning. Shade, arms crossed, radiating reluctance. Knuckla, cracking her neck. And you.

On the sidelines: Tails with a scoreboard she's already written on. Amy with a whistle. Rouge on a towel with sunglasses on, narrating to nobody. Vanilla under an umbrella with a book she isn't reading.

Eggma'am points across the net at Sonique. "You're going down, hedgehog."

"You said that about the zone," Sonique says. "How's that going?"

Amy blows the whistle. "First to eleven! Play nice!"

Wave serves. The ball comes over hard projected to land between you and Sonique.

The Nest is warm and dim and humming, and the alcoves are all full. The potion's had hours to work. Nobody in the hall is standing.

Amy's on her back in the nearest alcove with her dress rucked up and her thighs pressed together, breathing through her mouth. Knuckla is slumped against the padded wall with her head tipped back, one arm thrown over her eyes. Rouge is on her side with her bodysuit half-peeled and her tail twitching. Tails has given up on her glasses entirely. Shade is flat on her back, staring at the ceiling with the particular fury of someone who has decided not to make a sound and is losing.

And Sonique is on her knees on the rug in front of the couch, and she is not running her mouth for once.

Eggma'am's cock is out of the coat and standing up thick and flushed from her lap—heavy, veined, the head of it shining wet and already slicked from Sonique's mouth. Sonique has one hand wrapped round the base of it and her head down, taking it slow and deep, cheeks hollowed, and every time she pulls back there's a wet drag of sound and a fresh line of spit down her chin. Her quills are a mess. Her eyes are shut. She's doing it like she's been told to.

Eggma'am is sprawled back on the couch with her coat open and her boots up on the armrest, flushed, one hand resting loosely on the back of Sonique's head. She looks enormously pleased with herself.

"Ah. There you are." She lifts her chin at you. "Come in, come in. Don't hover."

She gestures lazily at the hall.

"You did well today. The leash, exactly as asked—she came back bruised and desperate and not dented once." Her thumb moves against Sonique's skull and Sonique makes a muffled, wet sound and doesn't stop. "So. Pick one. Or two, if you're feeling ambitious. They're all in a state and none of them are going to argue with you."

She tips her head back against the couch and smiles at the ceiling.

"Go on. Take your time. I'm not going anywhere."

Your living room has become a courtroom and you didn't agree to be the judge.

Sonique is on one side of the coffee table with her arms folded and her chin up. Shade is on the other with her back against the wall and her arms folded and her chin up. They've been at it for ten minutes and the argument has not moved an inch.

"—built to replace me," Sonique is saying, "and it still can't do it. That's not a rival, that's a spare."

"You've lost to me four times."

"I've lost to a machine with a prediction engine. That's not the same as losing to you."

"It's the same thing."

"It's not the same thing!" Sonique throws her hands up and turns to you. "Tell her it's not the same thing."

Shade's head turns. "Yes. Tell her."

They both look at you at once and it's very clear neither of them is going to leave until this is settled. Sonique taps her foot.

"Fine. Fine. New rule." She points at Shade, then at you. "We've raced. We've fought. We've never—" she gestures vaguely at the room, at the couch, at you, "—done this one. So we do it now. Same rules, same start, whoever gets there first wins."

Shade pushes off the wall. "First is a coin toss. It should be most."

"Most is fine." Sonique's grin is all teeth. "Most is better. You'll still lose."

She drops onto the couch beside you and Shade takes the other side, and the two of them are close enough now that you can feel the heat coming off both of them.

"You don't do anything," Shade says, low, into your ear. "You just count."

"And try not to die," Sonique adds, and then she's on you.