Lying on their back in a cold grey room, staring up at the silhouette of a gargoyle on the windowsill, they came back into their body. They exhaled. Their breath tasted like dust and their mask was missing.

Okay, what else?

Not dead, check.

In a strange place, check.

They sat up—ow.

Sore everywhere, check. A ragged line on their stomach glowed and angry pink. A phantom shifted in their empty eye socket, scratching the inside of the lid. They picked at a strand of hair that had coiled inside and popped the wad out. Pleasant, they grimaced, holding up the slimy ball. Eight tiny eyes glittered back at them. With a curse, they flung the spider. It hit the wall with a thok and skittered into the shadows. Shuddering, they scrubbed their empty socket with their sleeve.

"I can't believe you let a spider live in my eye," they grumbled. The gargoyle, Radio, unfolded its legs. "A spider. Alive. Living in my eye."

Radio threw its arms around them, pressed its face into the crook of their neck. Their pulse thrummed on its cheek. That was a lot of touching for that soon after waking up.

They folded it into themself.

"Okay, alright, I'm not dead, big deal." They gave Radio one last squeeze before pulling away.

A spot of wavering yellow backlit the water stained sheet hung over the entryway. It leaked over the debris-littered floor, swelling into a globe when Big Valdivia ducked into the room. A stubby tallow candle cast her face in gloomy relief. She stalled in the doorway when she saw them, rocking back on her heels with a sharp breath.

Hm, well, look at that. Hate felt cold when it burned that bright.

Hand curling tight on the sheet, Big Valdivia landed on flat feet and entered. The candle flame wobbled hard as she set it next to an empty prescription bottle on a warped table that had been shoved into the corner.

"I'm not sorry for what I did," she said. In the wavering light she looked scarecrowish, thinner than she had in the legal office. Nothing like the woman who had nearly caved their head in, unfortunately. That woman had been ready to tear apart the Red Faction.

"Good for you." They hoped the rasp in their voice carried the indulgent volume of sarcasm they intended. Valdivia might need that conversation, but they didn't, unless it came imbued with the magical ability to un-cannibalize their kidney.

Testing their legs, they pried themself off the disintegrating spring mattress. A rush of static blurred their vision and threatened to wash their limbs down the drain. Radio pressed a supportive hand to their back. They waved it off. They could walk, they just needed time. With a slow exhale, the lightheadedness passed.

They were mostly intact. Horrifically sore, like they'd been hit by a train once or twice. Standing up, walking, moving in general pulled at the tender patch in their side and sent their brain into a dizzy spiral.

A hollow place hid under the topography of their belly. Nothing underneath. Nothing there. Just nothing.

But they could walk. They rested their weight on the table, skimming its contents. A dozen terrible bundles of plastic and metal lay in four neat groups long the back of the table. Scraps and rusted tools and makeshift tinfoil dishes holding the remnants of stuff True couldn't even begin to guess at had been pushed to the sides to make room for hand sketched blueprints and pages of bullet-pointed instructions on the backs of browning receipts. They recognized the handwriting.

Flammable materials, said Radio from the crumbling paper.

"We're burning them," True approved.

"We're blowing them up," Valdivia said.

So that's what the bundles were. Very poetic, considering. They lifted one, listening to the rattle. Light caught an R scratched into one flattened side. The other side had a stick figure family aggressively crossed out.

"A little different from firefighting," they said, casting Radio a wry look. It gave a half-hearted ta-da. "Are these okay to have around fire?" they asked, eyeing the stubby candle. Suddenly it didn't seem like such a good idea to be standing so close to the table. Valdivia snagged the candle out from Radio's reaching fingers.

"I've got it," she said, too quick. Whispers of the return of her springlock joints coiled her grip tighter about the candle.

Cracking a grin, True pinched the wick out. "You have a lot of nerve treating Radio like that after our trade. After what you did to me?"

'Mom!"

True snapped their mouth shut on their next sentence. Teeth sank into tongue, a rush of blood coated the inside of their cheeks. Big Valdivia's wide eyes shone out of the murk, glued to True. Her daughter teetered off the last step to Big Valdivia's side, a dirty plastic bagful of crinkly bottles swinging off her arm. Mu trailed after her, Cal at his side.

"We got so many bottles," Little Valdivia said, letting her mother wrap a protective arm around her.

"Good job, honey," Big Valdivia said, a tremor in her voice. She cleared her throat to cover it and dug something out of her pocket and held it out to True. "I hope it's a start."

True rolled the translucent orange plastic in their palm. "An empty bottle. Thanks."

"It had antibiotics in it," Big Valdivia said. "Radio needed some."

They rolled the plastic bottle over again, an illegible worn label stared up at them. The decided to say nothing. Let her squirm for a day, a fee for emotional labour, since they sure weren't going to be sleeping easy any time soon. The nightmares from this were going to be a bitch.

Big Valdivia smoothed her daughter's hair away from her face, prying her faze off True.

"Moooom," Kiari fidgeted under the touch. Suni batted her softly.

"It's in your face," she said.

"I like it like that." Little Val protested.

"You like to make your mom tired." Big Val worried her lip, wincing when her skin cracked. She studied her daughter's face like this was the last time she would ever get to see it, which did not fil True with confidence in this bomb plot. "Show me what you and Mu got."

Summoned by the sound of his name, Mu shrugged a duffel from his shoulders. The contents of the bag crinkled as he set it down. Radio joined him at the table to peer at the loot. It plucked a clear plastic bottle from the pack and tossed it over its shoulder. The bottle thumped True's shoulder. Fumbling, they caught it. Clear liquid sloshed inside the grimy old water bottle, obviously not water. The stench of alcohol singed True's nose hairs through the seal. Ugh, that was strong. They held it away from their face before the burn could make their eyes water.

"I don't think that's edible," they said, tossing the bottle of moonshine.

"It's fire fuel," Cal said from out in the hall. "Congrats, you're on the bomb squad."

"Sounds tiring."

"Go back to sleep, then."

True tugged their mask up to cover a snort. That wasn't even funny. They did want to go back to bed, thinking about climbing those stairs made them pre-emptively exhausted.

"Me and who?" they asked.

"Radio and Eliza." He rocked back on his heels, biting his tongue. Okay, True and Eliza. That was a group they could tolerate. They didn't trust Eliza farther than they could spit, but she'd do her job.

"And?"

Three people, four sets of bombs. Cal smacked flat onto his feet, the sound echoed in the absence of an answer. Only two people unaccounted for, and Cal sure as heel wouldn't be stalling on Mu's name.

"Jonesy is the only one who's been inside the fishery," Big Valdivia started.

Who cared how he'd gotten inside in the first place, right? True slammed the moonshine on the table, shoving past Mu. A Market buzzed above them, the only way out was up, through the crowd.

Cal cut from their left, which gave them time to brace, snarl. Radio intercepted him none too gently. His knuckles smacked off the cinderblock wall, shoe scraping on the lip of the step. With a sharp breath, he steadied himself on the nearest option—Radio.

True didn't even think his fingers closed all the way before he hit the bottom of the stairs. He rolled to a crunchy halt as Radio retreated up a step, a quiver in its flaring nostrils.

"Hey!" Mu boomed. His moony face crumpled with equal parts distress and anger as he swung his long, floppish body up the stairs. One step too close and he crunched, too. Little Val's shriek harmonized with Mu's yelp when he hit the wall head on. Blood burst from his nose, his arm popped, wrenched up between his shoulder blades. The whites of Radio's eyes flashed. Its chest heaved up, down, on sharp exclamation point breaths.

Above, the hubbub of the Market swelled, drawn by the commotion.

"Control your—"

"Control my what," True cut Big Valdivia off, daring her to say what she meant. The ache in their side flared in time with their racing pulse. "You really want to pretend you're better than us? We made a trade."

"True—" panic painted her voice neon bright. She pushed her daughter behind her as if she could shield Little Val from the truth. Her stare dropped to True's hollowed-out side. Yeah, that's right. One bad trade. When she lifted her eyes, the panic had gone cold. A small part of them cowered from her. They understood the Suni that had come out to play in that law office conference room, but they hated her for it.

"Radio," they said, measured and quiet.

Radio Silent unstuck itself from Mu's whimpering bulk. The thin thin line of its lips on the verge of pressure fusing. Grinding a worm of fear between their molars, True jerked their head at the exit. They didn't know where they were going but it had to be away from here. Radio fell into step beside them. Pinching their sleeve to catch their attention, it tapped the tips of its shaking fingers to its chin and drew them down to its waiting palm.

"I'm fine," they grumbled, laying a steadying hand on its cold back. Their cheeks stung. Were—why were they smiling? Not smiling, they tested the corner of their mouth with their tongue. Baring their teeth.

At the top of the stairs, the crowd parted, repelled by their anger. And yet it was suffocating. The nearness of all those bodies pushed on their skin, and it felt like dirt piled onto their grave.

"I never agreed to do things your way," Valdivia's call froze them in place. She stood at the foot of the stairs, from that distance they almost couldn't make out her overwound joints or the anger sharpening the planes of her face. "Only to let you join us. There's no time to change plans now."

Join them. Join them. True sneered, balling the hem of their tattered shit in their hand. They bared their tender, deep pink scar. Still held shut by dental floss stitches. Still weeping and mottled.

"I'll have to trade you my other kidney to get a vote, eh?"

Shock rippled through the crowd, pushing it apart at the seams. Valdivia, for her part, swayed. A little limp. A little unbalanced. Her anger plastered on her face like a theater mask. It looked like her springlocks had finally snapped.

Shoving their hands into their pockets, True turned to escape out the gaps of the split-apart crowd before the aftermath caved in on Valdivia and trapped them down there with her.

One night. Fine.

They would deal with these people for one more night. Unlike Big Valdivia, they honoured their trades. And anyways, those bombs were all they had to rip the Red Faction to shreds. To make it so the Faction would never come after Radio—or True—again.