I think . . . my pussy . . . is numb.

All extraterrestrial species have some form of handheld weapon. The form of the weapons reflects not just the anatomy of the individual species and the technologies available, but the expected use of the weapons and environment. K'lur'k fire-poles, for example, are a traditional weapon that is very poorly adapted to relatively short, cramped corridors aboard spacecraft. Security forces on board spacecraft normally maintain a monopoly on the use of force, and none of them want a hull breach, so less-lethal options are often preferred. Ballistic weapons with relatively low-velocity soft projectiles were the standard for a wide variety of security forces during the Exodus, with a variety of melee weapons, electrical and chemical deterrents, and a very small arsenal of directed energy and more exotic weapons, carryovers from military use and intended to deter boarding actions from other spacecraft. Now that these alien species have arrived at Earth, conditions have changed, and security forces are adapting their arsenals and training accordingly, and offloading obsolete arsenal items to a receptive market.
—Mallory Giger, Xenobiomechanics, Chapter 2

Béibhinn took a deep breath. She did not move from the doorway. A muscle in her jaw seemed to pulse. Very carefully, she set her laptop bag down inside the door.

"I need to get some help," the ghola said. "Where are the other hosts for the Seacouver Hive?"

"Foh-oh-two," Mel managed, doing his best not to bite Rache.

"Okay. I'd say stay put, but I don't think you really have any choice," Béibhinn said.

The door opened. Then she was gone. Which left Mel staring at his girlfriends. Rigid as statues. Eyes glowing. They were breathing, even blinking. Jordan and Jenny's tongues wiggled in the air as the blood dried on their lips and chins. From his perspective, he could barely make out the details, but it didn't look like they were bleeding out. Their nipples were still hard, their pupils dilated wide, so he could only see a thin circle of iris.

Mel's eyes went back to Rache. Her neck was limned with blue light.

"Ah'm thorry," Mel managed. He wasn't sure if this was his fault or not. He supposed anyone could have been eating their pussy and this could have happened. Yet he was the one who was supposed to be doing that, and now—he assumed it had to be connected to the pearl in Rachel's neck some way.

He tried to move his neck, but Rachel had drawn him up tight against her crotch, and he was trapped. Mel's tongue could still find her clit, explore her pussy, and he slid his tongue over every part of her he could reach, as he watched her for some sign. Yet there was nothing. She made no more reaction to his tongue circling her stiff little clit than when he let his tongue rest still in his mouth.

Mel's options were few. He could bite, but that would hurt Rache, and he wasn't prepared to do that. Not if Béibhinn could come back with help.

Help. Mel's hand went to the phone, still in his pocket. He pulled it out and poked through his contacts. Molly would probably be willing to help, but he wasn't sure when she could get here or what she could do. Lucie was no help. Rachel was already here. Ha-Yoon might give him some advanced oral sex advice, but he doubted he could lick or suck his way out of this problem.

He thumbed MacElroy's number. Typed the text carefully with his thumb.

JORDAN JENNY AND RACHEL STUCK TOGETHER WITH EYES GLOWING. JJ TONGUES SPLIT. CAN'T MOVE. BIB WENT FOR HELP.

Hit send.

Five long minutes. Mel tried licking Rache's pussy again, her vulva still hot and wet. His jaw ached a little, and his tongue was numb; Mel wondered if this was helping at all or making it worse. He couldn't feel any of the little tremors he associated with pleasure, no involuntary hip movements. Rache and the others were locked in place, as he proved when he used his hands to poke at the brain slug host's thighs, to find the muscles bunched and hard.

The phone buzzed. MacElroy. One word. LOCATION?

Mel typed back. APARTMENT. 501.

ON MY WAY. She texted back.

Which meant Mel was back staring cross-eyed at Rachel's belly button. He sighed and used his hands to massage his thighs and calves, feeling vertebrae say things to him about staying in this position for so long. That made him think of Rache and the others. Keeping their muscles so tense, they had to be having a harder time about it than he was. Almost as an afterthought, Mel's hand found the spore-reader device and brought it out to catch a sample of the air, then put it back in his pocket.

When the door opened, several minutes later, it was Anastasia, in her moon-and-stars pajama bottoms and a black sleeveless shirt with a white skull on it, slightly deformed because she had it tucked up under her breasts. Following her was Béibhinn, and behind the ghola were Pat in their Immortals jacket, work pants, and jeans, and Cara. Mel's eyes widened to see the androgynous, brown-haired brain slug host walking.

The casts had been taken off her arms and legs, which were fitted with long black tubes with braces around elbows, knees, wrists, shoulders, and hips, with some sort of battery pack in the lower spine area.

An exoskeleton, he realized. Maybe to take the strain off her newly knit bones?

Beneath that, his doppelganger wore a pair of white shorts and a wifebeater, looking very tomboyish.

"Huh. You weren't kidding," 'stasia said, stepping forward confidently, circling the couch, not touching, but looking at them all. "The blue pearl is glowing. I can actually see the outline of her vertebrae."

"That means the node is active," Béibhinn said. "But it's not supposed to stay active this long. Not yet, anyway. We need to pull them out of it. The problem is, we might get caught up in it and be unable to pull ourselves out."

The ghola spoke, but didn't move. Mel waved his phone at her.

"Ah galled Maghelraugh," he garbled around Rache's pussy.

Some of the tension went out of the ghola's shoulders, at least from what Mel could see out of the corner of his eye, past Jordan's thigh and over the arm of the couch.

"Then we wait," the ghola said, and she and the brain slug hosts retreated to the kitchen.

"While we wait," 'stasia said, pulling out a notepad and pen. "Can you describe what happened in detail? It's for my dissertation."

"Ogahy," Mel said. "Aghl tray."

After a few minutes, they gave up on Mel trying to speak—his mouth kept filling up with something that might have been saliva but tasted like Rache had left her tap running—and communicated by text messages on their phones. Mel's thumb was getting sore by the time there was a discreet knock at the door, which opened to reveal Detective MacElroy.

The brain bat took in the entire situation at a glance, then shucked her coat, loosened her tie, rolled up her sleeves, and opened the first button on her collar. More of her skin than Mel had ever seen before. He was surprised to see blue-green-grey tattoos on every exposed square inch, though of what he couldn't tell. They looked like the kinds of tattoos the older kids in high school gave themselves with ballpoint pens in the bathroom and resulted in mumbled explanations in the nurse's office later.

"Hold hands," she said. "Form a chain. I'll make first contact, but we need to be in sync. Act as one."

Much of what happened next was out of Mel's field of vision. He heard the soft whirr of Cara's exoskeleton, the footfalls of the ghola's boots, then the looming shadow of MacElroy's mass behind Rache's head. A heavy hand placed itself lightly on her neck, the fingers curling around, briefly limned by a blue glow.

The light faded from all three of his girlfriend's eyes at once, as if someone had pulled a switch. Jordan and Jenny collapsed into soft heaps against Rachel, whose entire body went slack with a sharp exhale. Mel was not prepared for the hot, wet spurt that burst from her pussy into his mouth, and for a moment he thought she was squirting before he realized what was really happening and closed his mouth.

Carefully, he disentangled himself from Rache's legs, his shirt and face soaked, jaw aching, tongue numb.

"Are they okay?" Mel said.

MacElroy said nothing for a moment. Her eyes were closed, hand still on Rache's neck. The human woman was wheezing slightly, shaking all over, and Mel stumbled to his feet. Pat and Béibhinn each grabbed Jordan and Jenny and carried them away. As the brain bat withdrew her hand, Rache's eyes fluttered open. She gave him a weak smile.

"I . . . have never . . . in my life . . . cum so hard," she managed, panting and trying to get her breath. "Like, there's . . . that moment . . . of climax when . . . you can't stop . . . can't think . . . everything so intense . . . and then . . . it went on . . . and on. I think . . . my pussy . . . is numb."

"They should be fine," MacElroy said. "A little sore, that's all. Their tongues will heal, although remain split. That's a common aspect of second-stage brain slug integration."

"Second stage?" Mel said. "I've heard that before, but I don't know what it means."

"Brain slugs grow throughout their lives. In the wild, this can lead to some very big brain slugs, but when integrated with a host, most of the growth is internal. Expanded neural capacity, more modifications to the host body to fit their needs. Rather similar to how the ghola operate. Ideally, the growth is so gradual that the integration with the hosts deepens," the brain bat said.

"And if it isn't ideal?" Mel asked.

MacElroy didn't sigh, but she looked at him.

"We'll talk about that another day," she said.

The shower started. Jordan and Jenny were getting bathed, no doubt. 'stasia nodded at the bathroom.

"We should get her cleaned up. Over in our place," the human woman said.

Mel nodded, found Rache's pants and panties, and helped her into them. He was sure he was stinking and looked a fright. But he turned to MacElroy, who was rolling her sleeves back down.

"What happened?" he asked.

The detective stared hard at them all.

"The blue pearl is a node in the neural network which will, one day, awaken into a new World Soul—the emergent consciousness of all the organisms that can communicate as we do. Normally, it is passive; the pearl facilitates communication. Brain slugs and others like them can use her as a bridge to talk to one another. Since humans are highly compatible with brain slugs on certain levels, it should also enhance that innate ability to communicate, though mostly still on an unconscious level," MacElroy took a deep breath and rebuttoned her shirt, tightening her tie. "For a moment, however, that node of the network went active. The three of them were, for all intents and purposes, one entity in three bodies. That should not have happened."

"But why did it?" 'stasia said, with her notebook in hand.

MacElroy slid her coat back on.

"An external influence," the brain bat said, her face carefully neutral. "Someone or something triggered the event."

"Who?" Rache said, as she stood up on shaky legs, holding onto Mel for support.

"That," MacElroy said. "Is what we need to find out. Was there anyone else in the room with you?"

"No," Rache said. "Just the four of us. Bib was out. 'stasia wasn't here."

MacElroy didn't voice her suspicions, and so Mel bit his tongue and didn't say anything about the Changeling. There hadn't been anyone else here, but none of them could be the Changeling, could they? It didn't make sense to him.

"Go help her clean up," MacElroy said, and pointed to the puddle in front of the couch. "We'll take care of things here."

Mel's throat went tight, but he nodded. 'stasia looked like she wanted to ask more questions, but led the way back to the apartment across the hall. Rache let 'stasia take over in the bathroom, so Mel stood there, with his wet shirt, staring at 'stasia's altar, the pictures on the wall, through the open door to Rache's bedroom and at the closed door to 'stasia's.

Almost as an afterthought, he took out the spore meter and took another sample.