Out in the ty, led in the woods of SE Oxbow Drive, there was an old horse ranch verted into a pig farm. It still had a lot of the decor and accoutrements of its previous life, such as horse shoes here and there and the specific fields and pygrounds that horses needed. But no one who stumbled onto the property actually saw any animals besides the dog. And the smell of pigs was unmistakable.

  Or so, that’s what my memories told me as I pinpoihe location on a satellite map on my phone.

  Seeing the rooftops and the red van in the drivearked more memories that weren’t inally mine.

  Chord could do things to other emanants, force adaptations. Anyone who came under his gaze could find themselves walking or slithering or swimming arofoundly different being. And he used that ability to cultivate a certain kind of livestock disguised as farm animals.

  He also had an exceptional i e.

  Fate Vine had uood these things to a degree, but my ret and nameless visitor had had the freshest memories of it. It had been one of those who had been ged, so I also knew what that felt like.

  Needless to say, I was disturbed and feeling trepidatious about fag Chord.

  In any case, I could see from the map that the easiest way for me to get there was to fly, probably by taking the shape of a bird.

  My ability to ge my shape had sped up siderably since I’d discovered and bee acquainted with my greater self, but I still decided that I’d nd just outside the property, in the shelter of the woods, to take a form more suitable for the ranch itself.

  And I wasn’t sure what that’d be. I needed a closer look to determine what I was fag.

  How big was Chord’s domain? Was it the whole ranch? Would I be able to draw him out at all? And what other kind of security did he have?

  I’d probably want to keep a for traps simir to what I’d used in the ventioer way back when. Oh, shit. Had that been over a month ago?

  For a brief moment, I was also fused as to how long it had been sihe previous night. So much had ged so quickly for this sleepy little on suburb of Portnd that was legally pretending to still be its own town. The disaster of my fight with Fate Vine and Felicity had emptied downtown so thhly of people, it had felt like an apocalyptic event.

  Ahere were cars passing by my lot already, taking people to work. And when I stood on the sidewalk and looked up from my phoo watch them, it felt like nothing had happe all.

  There was a city bus off in the distance, and I heard the dinging of the MAX.

  Then I remembered that when Cassy and I had taken our fateful walk, just before that had all gone down, I’d noticed a missing streetlight. As if the thing had sprouted wings and flown off like a bat while no one was looking.

  An affectivore that had abruptly left town, I had guessed.

  That wasn’t very far away.

  So, I decided to go for another walk to look around. I didn’t actually expect it to have returned, but if the city was repg it already, or had put up sigo direct drivers, that would tell me about the state of things. And if they weren’t, that would, too.

  I was also curious as to how quickly the liminals might start returning to town now that the number of Supraliminals had been sharply reduced. Probably not many quite yet, but I couldn’t have good data without a baseline.

  And going for that walk helped me e to a quick resolve about something.

  After I was doh Chord, I’d revert my adaptations bay fort zone, aurn to feeding on humaions as soon as possible.

  I’d known I nning on doing that already. What I was doing now, allowing myself to pray on other emanants, was a matter of self defeaken in desperation and panic. It was not at all who or what I wao be, and I’d use those traits sparingly to up this mess. But walking around and watg humanity pick up where it had left off without any clear indication of how they were all feeli me experieng a weird alienation.

  I felt detached from reality.

  But, then, also, curiously, there were actually a few more liminal emanants around than the day before. Not as numerous as they once were, yet, but it seemed like they were cautiously returning.

  The missing traffic light was still missing, though, and the city had not yet addressed the issue beyond causing all the remaining lights to blink red.

  Hayward Grocery en and funal, showing no signs of having fired three of its employees. I may have growled in their dire in a distinctly inhuman way.

  What was it that I wanted from there?

  ht. A pen and notepad that it turned out I didn’t need.

  I stood and watched the business for a while. And I thought about how muergy it was wasting through its ma, and just how deeply I could fuck with them in revenge. With the right moves, I could probably transform the pto a full blown employee owned union shop, and publicly embarrass and screw the current owners in the process.

  It would actually be a fairly good deed, if somewhat aggressive for me.

  I was sorely tempted, but put it on the backburner.

  Chord’s demise was calling.

  A small crow that was me alighted upon a branch overlooking the property of one Chordate Montgomery. I’d looked up the address and title, even though it was also knowledge that Fate Vine had had. I wao double check it.

  Of course Fate Vine had known these details. It had been the puppeteer of bureaucracy.

  I felt like ‘Montgomery’ robably a literary reference or something, but I couldn’t pce it, and decided it was just a step too obscure. The bold audacity of taking the first name of ‘Chordate’ amused the hell out of me, though.

  In any case, I used my not-quite-crow eyes to observe the now pig farm with all of my senses. I’m sure they didn’t even work like actual crow eyes, because I didn’t bother to study them. I wao see as much of the eleagic spectrum as possible while just looking remarkably like a crow.

  Any emanant of sophistication would have seen through the disguise anyway. I hadn’t figured out how to hide my presen the strands without taking up too much spa the rest of the universe yet.

  But, if I kept my movements minimal and stayed outside Chord’s property, I probably wouldn’t catch the eye of any guardia, so I’d just nded high in a tree and started gng around.

  To my sensibilities, there wasn’t much to it as far as horse ranches were ed. There was a house in the ter of it, with a long and wide driveway leading to it, ending in a loop that passed by the front pord the garage. And the rest of the property was divided up with fehat had gates in them. I think those areas might have been called paddocks and pastures, usually used for different horse things. But here, they were rge opehat were kept clear of visual obstrus, with fehat could act as a sort of security. Anything that came at the house over nd would have to cross one of those fields and would be seen by whomever was watg.

  Behind the house, halfway between it and the back of the property, was a fairly rge barn. And that was obviously where the horses had bee, and now held quote – pigs – end-quote.

  What I was looking for were obvious signs of a domain of some sort, and any emanants that were obvious enough to see from my location.

  There was definitely one Supraliminal in the basement of the house, but it looked kind of small. However, I o get closer to the barn, et inside of it, to identify any of the liminal emanants that might have been in there.

  And there was a dog lying right in the middle of the gravel drive. A cute bribull that anting in the cold January m sun with an expression that looked happy to humans. The p was obviously stressed. It did not appear to be an emanant, which surprised me.

  No domains that I could identify.

  So, I kind of suspected that was Croc-fa the basement. And if there was anyone else in the house, they were either straight up humans or liminal emanants made up to look like humans.

  If Chord was on the property, he was hidden in ways that I did not yet uand were possible. Or, he was using a trick simir to what Felicity had just discovered, a human with a pocket universe in their head. I couldn’t rule that out.

  Chord liked to take the shape of a snake, and that probably meahought like an ambush predator. Teaming up with Croc-face made a certain kind of sehat way.

  I thought about this.

  I didn’t want to ignore any element of the ranot even the adorable little dog. Anything I didn’t take into at could be a trap. But, oher hand, I could paralyze myself with over analysis and triple and quadruple guessing.

  The simplest way to start would be to e from a dire that the dog wasn’t looking, preferably oher side of the house.

  That gave me the option of sneaking up from behind the barn, assuming they didn’t have extra security there. And pulling some sort of shit with the livestock would be a great way to maybe draw Chord out, because that was his food.

  I could e from an oblique angle and skip the barn, and head straight for what I hoped was Croc-face, and take that piece of the game board as quickly as possible. And that option really appealed to me.

  This whole thing would have made much more sense if I’d waited to have help, actually.

  But while I was in anything but my Synthia disguise, my cell phone did, and was read as disected or turned off by the work. I wouldn’t get any messages from any allies – Felicity – until I’d maed the phone again. As if Felicity was even an ally.

  I almost went right bae after that observation, but I didn’t. Which I knew was foolish even as I made that decision.

  I was bigger than this entire ranch. If I wao obliterate it and every emanant on it, I could desd upon it as that cloud I’d bee the night before, only with digestive tears and billions of tiny thirsty proboscides. So I vinced myself I could py with what y for me there. Explore it. Tease it.

  After all, if there was a domain and Chord was waiting in it, he could just stay in there while I destroyed his home and killed everyone in it, and I wouldn’t be able to touch him.

  Even if I adapted myself to be a carpedominator, which I now knew how to do thanks to the pizza parasite, I’d have to get him to let me in before I could take advantage of it.

  But if I came t in, and blundered about and demolished his works bit by bit, maybe I could anger him enough to front me.

  So, I approached from the side and wove a somewhat drunken route that e the barn, as if I was being indecisive but ultimately settling on his food source as my target.

  But, before I did that, I fluttered to the ground in the woods and became something else. It took a little bit, but it was worth it.

  theInmara