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That night, mom came home escorted by ushers.
Kaheena did not think they would see those people in white coats so soon, not until she was old and grey—and they’d forget all about it. People here didn’t like to think about the angels of death any more than they liked the eventuality itself. But what returned was worse than a corpse, as far as they were concerned. Wiped of her memories, the woman who raised them was a stranger. Stricken right onto the regulator, it did its job halfway: gave her new life, but failed to transfer over her essence.
It was an extraordinarily rare occurrence, they said. Hunting was supposed to be an honest job. It had its risks, as any activity in the Thunderyards outskirts did, but they were supposed to be mitigated by the regulators. The times that mom had died did not matter. She hadn’t even shared if she ever had. She’d courted more danger in life outside, everhow. Though practically born with the thunder, Kaheena knew all about it, having learned the family business from a young age.
They should have let her pass on into what came after… even if there wasn’t much to pass on. Maybe that way, with the support given to orphans, they wouldn’t have had to learn exactly why mom changed vocations. Intercepting produce shipments to feed their younger siblings and their now childlike mother? Simple with the rickety Xak Turali caravans, less so with Solution Nine’s armored vehicles. Robbing people at gunpoint? By the time they took their shot, the sentries would be called, and the poor sucker resurrected right after. Fudge those sentries. No respect for tradition, or what one has to do to eat.
It got them thinking, the way she was erased. Could it be replicated? If someone didn’t remember you’d stolen from them, did it really happen? They certainly wouldn’t report it. They needed to test this theory, and thus they began to tamper with their brother’s regulator. Only small things at first, memories he wouldn’t miss. They would tell him one thing, give a shock, lie, rinse and repeat and finetune the process until that look of confusion over the disconnect lessened. In its place, their methods burned holes into his memory. But what did it matter, if it meant he would eventually benefit too?
By the time he was grown enough to consider trying to make his mark in the Arcadion, they had mastered their craft. They could have stopped him as they had stopped many other beef-headed ideas in the past. For his own good. But a contact in that whole business was useful enough that the little kitty left home unintercepted. Kaheena was moving onto bigger things, too.
For in this evolved wasteland, there was no resource more desired than souls—and they were ready to begin swindling people off theirs. It was as easy as taking candy from a baby, now; by the time the poor fools recovered, they were gone. They wouldn’t remember a thing. But the average feller carried one or two souls extra, measly scraps for one so hungry. They could take this higher. As high as the souls’ source itself, they thought in their hubris.
They did not get far in before trouble came calling.
“A peculiar device and an ingenious design; I thought you were snapping a photograph, but you were not, were you?” the woman before her commented, batting eyes unperturbed even as their ears flattened, tail bristled, and their gun now pointed at her strangely bejeweled forehead. “I assume you were intending to mug me with it, given this fallback plan?”
What was wrong with their mindwiper? She should be dazed by now! Only then did they see the odd device upon her temple was not a regulator. Then why was she not afraid for her life? “Stay back!” they shouted with all the false confidence they imagined mom once had. Though towering over their barely-adult frame, this scientist was no beast able to stomp them down if they took one wrong step. They were heeled, she was not. “Hand over the souls and no one gets hurt!”
The way she looked at them—like a misbehaving pet, or a curious trinket—teetered their facade. She saw the panic underneath, but refused to match their energy. “Poor thing. You didn’t think this through, did you?” Her condescension could have choked them. “You will shoot me, then what? The entire event stays on footage.”
“I’ll—what’s it matter to ya?” they hissed. “Won’t even live to see your justice!”
She smiled and raised the book she’d held. In a gust that knocked them back, a violet bird-woman emerged. A soulshifter?! No, the original body remained. The creature came out of nowhere. Razor winds whipped at them, forcing them to drop the gun.
“Here is what we will do, sweetheart,” the scientist said, suddenly more serious and entirely ignoring their threat now that she’d declawed them. “You’ll let me have a look at your toy, and you will play nice. Can you do that?”
This was not how it was supposed to go. They fumbled to pick their weapon back up, but failed as the bird shifted shape, now a horned fiend intimidating them with lavender flame. She took the opportunity to circle around them, examining them from every angle like an exhibit in a museum. The audacity to treat them like a specimen in this damned facility! Anger flared in them. “You can’t threaten my hard work off my meathooks, lady.”
“No threats,” she reassured—unsuccessfully—and threw her free hand in the air with that same nonchalance. Too little too late now that Kaheena’s gun laid uselessly across the room. “Simply an invitation to reconsider your approach. Violence is such a crude tool when curiosity yields far richer results.”
“Right, the thing that famously kills cats,” Kaheena snarked.
“How cynical,” she sighed, then tapped her chin in a show of thoughtfulness. “Let us try other C’s. Cooperation? … Compensation?”
Now she spoke their language.
“It’s hilarious,” they cackled, sitting on Minerva’s desk in the little abode she had near her workplace. “He gets this doe-eyed look like he don’t know where he is, mouth all gapin’. Don’t got a point for fleecin’ any other suckers when he’ll load up my stash in one visit.”
Even now she was typing away at some report or another, merely humming in response. Years had gone by, and still this was how they usually saw her: swamped in work the King of Resolve placed upon her. They knew she didn’t labor so hard for a payload, but to keep her head upon her shoulders. At least their cahoots had given her weapons to fight back even more than she had before.
“And his scaly highness?” they asked when no words came. “Still losin’ his marbles?”
“Positively so,” she said finally, the corners of her painted lips twitching up ever so slightly. “He cannot trust his present, so he mutters of his past. Like a hatchling and not a man approaching fifty.”
“Pathetic,” they snorted. “Thank the Queen for gullible men, right?”
“My favorite type of specimen,” she agreed. “May many more come our way.”