And if that alien nutjob decides to stop on the street, so much as look in my direction, me and everyone up and down the row will show him what for. Cops or not, the psycho will be eating a hail of-

The shouts of the Judgment Street homeowners made Sao's ears ring. He muted his phone just as the group of men being interviewed began firing into the air to prove the guns weren’t just props. “Judgment’s arming themselves. Are they allowed to do this?”

“Military folk,” was all Rai grumbled in lieu of an answer.

Phone reception grew fuzzy as they pulled up at the dilapidated campsite by Watchers’ Wood. The news footage froze on an elderly woman, eyes half-white and smiling wildly, loading a shotgun. Sao shut it off and coughed. The scent of pine picked at his airways.

The officers stationed at the campsite - a stingy number, Rai pointed out - apologized that the search had come to a standstill when they realized they had no magic specialists. The vast majority of magical adepts had been dispatched to Bell. The residents had begun acting strangely not long after Sigma had fled.

“Trying to take their own lives,” Rai relayed back for Sao. “We're scanning for him via satellite imaging, but picking out one van in all these trees - even if it’s that flashy TPP - isn’t going to be easy. Gives us a little time to wait for the chief, who might be the only magic officer available. Not that we should be waiting at all.”

Sao looked down the dirt-paved road.

Rai had begun his usual waiting ritual - pacing and bringing the phone up to his face every twenty seconds.

“Who’s that?” Sao asked, nodding toward a slim man seated on a log, his bloodied leg being tended by a medic. His face was attractive, and somewhat familiar.

“A resident. He jumped from the van.” Rai made a face. “Raph’s right. Sigma’s losing control.”

Sao found himself pacing too. “The chief. Is he... alright?”

“If you’re asking about his driving speed - yeah, I think we were at least twenty minutes ahead of him. Slowest driver on the force.” Rai paused and looked up. “There’s a reason. Sort of. He and his brothers were real close, all part of the same unit in the army. The youngest got hit by a SUV and died.”

The wind lifted a layer of dirt from the surface of the road.

“God. What awful luck.”

“It happened after they left the army, too. His brother was 30 minutes from his new apartment in the middle of Central when it happened, a pretty good neighborhood too - that just meant bigger cars. The driver slammed him into the pavement  and never looked back. He was found dead, sans wallet and watch. Nobody bothered to call an ambulance.”

Sao wanted to crawl into one of the logs like a beetle and sink into hibernation. Was the world really so bereft of happiness? “That’s terrible.”

“He’d already lost their middle brother at the time, I forget how. Anyway, losing both sucked the life out of him. They had just finished their tours and were supposed to be settling down. But Central wouldn’t have it, I guess.” Rai shrugged. “If you think he was acting off today - that’s his normal.”

Is it really? Sao chose not to speak.

“Don’t worry about him being taken by the Bells. He was anti-magic operations in the military and probably the most guarded person in existence. Another reason he drives a quarter of the speed limit, every time.” Rai checked his phone again, muttering absently. “If there’s anything bugging me, it’s if he’ll continue the coverup. Why would he choose the city that killed his brothers over the army?”

The clouds seemed to be gathering, blotting the campground with shadows. It hadn’t rained, but the place looked wet, weighty.

A brown sedan with mismatched paneling trundled up the road. Rai stepped forward. “There he is.”

---

Rai was being fitted with a bulletproof vest and was enjoying it far too much for Sao, and indeed, Zu’s taste.

When an aide offered help, Sao declined. “Sigma isn’t known to possess any guns, is he?”

“Better safe than sorry,” Zu said.

“Sao can stay here if he wants,” Rai said, fiddling with a blocky satellite tracker. “Might be a good idea. He has a… kind of a condition.”

One of Zu’s eyebrows heaved its way up. “Sao… you were one of Van’s recruits. The touch-averse one. You should have mentioned it. Better to have kept you at headquarters with Detective Raph. Rai...” The ponderously dark eyes swayed. “Have you insisted on his presence, knowing of his condition?”

Rai’s mouth snapped open.

“I asked to be here,” Sao said.

The regret was instantaneous, but at this point, on the day, totally expected. Facing the chief, in front of a forest of nightmares, what was there to really take pride in? He told himself not to fear. The chief seemed such a sad, broken figure after Rai’s story. But a collapsing tower could still take down much with it.

Zu’s brow lowered. A cliff face dropping into the sea. “Very well. You remain at the observation point. And you will put on a vest.”

---

The computers strewn over the campsite were trained on a topological map of the forest. In various windows, aerial video panned over what looked like identical views of pine trees and mud clearings. In some way, the digital summary of the place unnerved Sao more than being in the woods themselves, as he had been with Rai. The vast greeness, its map devoid of markings indicating human life, covered a seemingly infinite amount of space.

Canvas tents were being erected. They were expecting a long stay. 

Sao wondered where Rai was. The trackers appeared to be logging the paths of each investigator, and the receiver was playing out their static-laden updates, but there were no names to distinguish Rai among the dozen or so others. With luck, he’d be the one to track Sigma down. Then Sao and the chief would head straight to his location. Well, the chief would.

Sao spotted Zu heading over to meet an all-terrain vehicle that came grinding out of the woods. “Another escapee,” the driver announced, leading a limping woman with reddish locks out of the back seat. She was still wearing the Bell lodge loafers.

Zu knelt by her, drew his axe (causing the woman to shrink back) and muttered something. To the axe, not to her.

She had a familiar face, familiar coloration. Sao inched closer. “Excuse me, miss? Are you by chance Arden’s mo...?”

She smiled at him, sweetly, then sourly, then her face seemed to collapse into itself.

Feeling like an insect, Sao fled and tried not to think of Arden. Arden had been a skeptic, perhaps he’d resisted the suggestions, and been left behind at Bell Lodge - not like that was a guarantee of safety. 

When he’d seated himself on one of the logs beside the radio, Sao turned and found Zu behind him. “Chief.”

“Five of the estimated twelve abductees have been found,” Zu said. “Their relapses have been … controlled.”

“Good.” Sao inched over to give Zu some space to sit. The space was far from adequate and Zu remained standing. “Please don’t tell me to go home. This Bell situation’s been keeping me up nights.” Sao's eyes flicked to the edge of the site. A small figure lurking behind a tree. Then nothing. He turned away. “Are you carrying the Bell itself...?”

“Yes. It became dormant when I voided all incantations from and around Raph, but its energy is gradually returning. Four parts likely mean four souls conjoined - all parts are required for full deactivation.”

“So you’re determined to track down Sigma.” Sao watched the videos of treetops rolling by and, against better judgment, wished he was driving along the forest floor instead. “That’s good. Rai was worried there would be resistance due to the original owner being a member of the military.”

Zu didn’t say anything.

The small pale figure had appeared again behind a tree, closer than before, peeking in and out of hiding. “Chief,” Sao said, “is it possible that these humans-turned-weapons feel pain?”

“Upon impact, unlikely. They aren’t conscious in the physical sense. Or I imagine mine would be irreparably upset with me.”

The playful spin of his words cracked Sao’s guard. He stared, scrambling for the right words. “You believe there is some consciousness, then.”

“It’s not a common belief, but I do believe they are... listening. For more than just intent to activate them. The point of activation requires some level of trust to begin with which is why one can’t just appropriate another’s weapon. I’ve found that conversation eases the transition, allows superficial use of one that doesn’t belong to you...”

“You’re talking about literal conversation.” 

“That is my approach. I suppose you’ve noticed. But these pieces are so much more sensitive...”

Sao pressed a hand to his chin. “Would the listening for small talk count as a fault in the weapon, though? As a distraction, or tactic that could turn it against it's owner.”

“To fail to seal conciousness would indeed be disastrous. For a living soul to be seeping out since inception would compromise the structure of the final result.” Instinctively, Zu’s hand went to his axe - to protect, rather than draw it, Sao thought. Like he was covering a child’s ears. “But I’ve noted the listening aspect in even the most well-forged works. It may simply be an extension of their built-in reception for commands.”

“So it should be possible for anyone, with any weapon, to communicate.” Sao stood. “Can I speak to the Bell?”

Zu grunted and Sao readied himself for a hearty absolutely not. But instead, Zu reached into his inner pocket for a small round bundle. He set it on the table. “As much as I’d like withhold, you may already be doing so.”

“That explains a bit.” Sao looked straight as he could into the mist, the empty space that was the child standing at the edge of the campsite. “Hello, Ca-- kid. I’m glad to see you again.”

The figure shivered, flickered, then settled.

“I must thank you. Your advice was sound from the first time we met. I don’t think I’d have liked it much at Bell Lodge. Those people certainly didn’t have a good time in the end.” Sao would have pointed toward Arden’s mother and the other escaped residents, but was afraid to turn his head and let the little shape out of his sight. Lose the same dream again and be left grasping at sand. “Sigma’s not easy to work with. It’s not your fault. Much like how your master before him also made things unbearable.”

The wall of trees before him had receded into a watery darkness. A ripple spread through the air, pushing to the edges of his consciousness where it burst, glimmering, like waves breaking against the shore. The new light became a hundred, then thousands, brighter and brighter until Sao found himself sitting beneath a plane of stars. He smiled. His eyes watered.

“Becoming what you are out of the purity of your soul, hoping to preserve yourself in the perfect state, the perfect afterlife.” He spoke quietly; his throat felt like it might tear. “And having to hear people blinded and wrung out in dark rooms. Kids muffling their screams in a basement, coaxed in by images of the stars. An old victim growing stronger only to destroy his life because he never stopped believing in a lie created to trap him. Were you faulty? Were you conscious? Or is everyone full of it, can you still feel and hear everything?”

A shadow had cut across the sky, a dense black that blocked the stars. Then another. They bent like enormous, spiderlike fingers.

“Can you feel his anger from here? Or is it pain? Are you connected to your three friends?”

Sao felt his own hands against his throat. He shifted them up, to scratch his face. His nails pulled down hard.

“I know. You can’t make me do anything but that. And I definitely can’t force you into anything, either. But we can talk. We can... suggest.”

His fingers had once again meandered to his throat and they weren’t about to be misdirected again. If he preferred, though, he felt it would be just as well to split his brains open against the unsanded wood of the table. The wood was already rotting, its edges mangled. Another dent, another stain, wouldn’t bother anybody.

Not just yet. “Can you suggest something to Sigma, for me?”

He heard rattling and a fluorescent rectangle appeared beside him. What was a shoddy old computer doing in space? He heard the click of buttons and a swish of metal that could only have been an axe being drawn. A gravelly voice began counting a pattern he couldn’t quite identify. Five, eight…

With what little air he could garner through his crushed windpipe, Sao whispered, as quickly and as kindly as he could, “Tell him - no - ask him to wait for us.”

The countdown ended. The convulsion that followed blew him clear out of his dream once again. This time, Sao let it go.

For a moment he was weightless, skinless and soulless. Then all matter, all the particles of him came drifting back together. Time slowed to a crawl, his head growing heavier with every second that passed. His mouth was slack; he yawned. It was time for a nap. 

Or was it?

Sao lurched forward. His nose began to pour blood like a faucet. He narrowly missed soaking his shirt.

“That was a risk,” Zu said, sheathing the silver axe. He then proceeded to pull an entire box of tissues from somewhere in his cavernous trench coat. “Should have prepared a waiver. Luckily, a quick recovery. The trance retreated when it sensed the same maneuver. Perhaps the fault in this one is more than we anticipated… that would explain the freed residents… and the user...”

He may as well have been talking to his axe again. Sao was more interested in the incoming call over the radio.

“Chief. The van - we found him. He stopped. He says he’s waiting.”