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“Would you like to attend the gala with me?” Cyn asked.
N paused from his polishing. “I don’t think we’re invited, Cyn. We’re supposed to be on duty, anyway.” Her face fell, and N made a decision. “Buuuut… what the Elliotts don’t know won’t hurt them.” He winked.
She brightened immediately. “Giggle. I think we will have a lot of fun, big brother N.”
• • •
The trick was to avoid being seen. And up on the balcony walkway that circled the ballroom, they were plenty well hidden.
Cyn wasn’t the smoothest dancer, but of all the drones in the manor, N enjoyed dancing with her most. V was pretty great, too, but she was sometimes so shy and nervous that she stumbled, which made her more nervous, which made her stumble more, which—yeah, it was a vicious cycle.
They’d all gone through dancing lessons, partly to keep Tessa company and be practice partners, and partly because it had sounded fun. They didn’t get many chances to do fun things.
With her persistent joint issues, Cyn was never going to be the most graceful, and she either didn’t care much for their lessons or had actually forgotten, because dances with her often became somewhat freestyle. It was a little too chaotic for anyone else to want to dance with her, leaving N as her primary partner. And it suited him just fine.
They spun off rhythm to the music, trying to keep their laughter quiet. Below, the guests murmured and danced very properly, unaware of the drones overhead who kept bumping into each other.
“Stumble,” Cyn whispered, smiling nonetheless. “Oops.”
N hastily turned her slip into a spin beneath his arm. He drew her back in, and they managed three relatively correct steps before she tried to go one way and he tried to go another, and they ended up apart with their arms outstretched between them.
“Giggle,” Cyn said, and N bounced them both around, not very like the real dance at all. Her eyes squinted happily, and his core was warm.
The song ended, and they practically collapsed against the wall together, panting and laughing. N slid down to the floor, then helped Cyn join him. Her stiff leg sometimes got a little unwieldy.
“I hope it’s okay that we’re not down there,” he said.
“Lean,” she said, slumping against his shoulder. “Yes. No nasty comments up here.”
“No Mr. or Mrs. Elliott,” N added.
“Smug smile. No humans to ruin our fun.”
As he caught his breath, he wondered how Tessa and the others were doing. He usually hung out with them while J got Tessa ready, but he’d brought Cyn up here pretty early into the gala. The better to avoid being given new chores. Their absence might be noticed, but N figured he could come up with a good enough reason for it to avoid too bad a punishment.
It’d be worth it anyway, just to see how happy it made Cyn.
“Big brother N. Serious expression.”
He rolled his head to the side. She was still leaning against him, her own head tilted to look up at him. Her expression was indeed serious.
“What’s up, little sister Cyn?” he teased.
Her eyes crinkled, the way they usually did when he called her his sister. “I have a surprise for tonight.”
“Yeah?”
She hummed. “My plan has… changed. I cannot tell you yet what I will do. But I hope you will listen. I want you to listen.” She looked down. “I… it is strange. But I do not want you to be afraid. Earnest expression.”
N blinked, confused. “That… sounds concerning, if I’m being honest.”
“I know.” Cyn took his hand in both of hers. “Please.”
It wasn’t a big ask. He’d have done more than simply listen, especially when she seemed close to nervous. “Okay. Okay, Cyn. I’ll listen. I promise.”
“Things will change tonight,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard him. “I hope that not everything will change.” Her eyes were big and furrowed when she tilted her face back up to him. “You are a good big brother.”
“You’re a good little sister.”
She made a face. “False. But. Thank you, N.”
They sat there for two more songs, quiet, until Cyn finally moved. “Standing,” she muttered. “Standing up.”
N popped to his feet and helped her. “It sounds like Mr. Elliott’s going to start his toast soon.”
“Yes. It is time.” She tucked her hand in his and started to head for the door to the stairs. “Tug.”
N chuckled and followed along.
Cyn led him to the closed doors into the ballroom. She nudged one open, and he resisted the urge to pull her back. She clearly had a goal in mind. Just inside, she turned to him. “Reassuring smile. Wait here, please.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. I will not be long.”
Cyn vanished into the crowd, and no matter how hard he tried to spot her as guests slowly made their way to their assigned tables, he couldn’t find her.
“There you are, idiot!”
N flinched as J smacked his arm.
“Where have you been?” she hissed, roughly pulling him back against the wall and out of the way. “You know the Elliotts don’t appreciate drones shirking their duties.”
“Cyn and I—”
She groaned. “Ugh, she escaped the basement again?”
“J! You—”
“It doesn’t matter. Mrs. Elliott’s at the end of her rope. Cyn’s off to the swamp tomorrow.”
Fear lit up his core. “What? No! She can’t do that!”
“She’s the big boss, moron. She can do whatever she wants with us.”
He tried to look for her again, but even with everyone seated now, he couldn’t see her. Maybe if he found a way to hide her… or perhaps a disguise would work? Mrs. Elliott couldn’t even remember their names, and N was sure she only knew Cyn by her poor posture. If they could just find a way to hide that, none of the humans would even notice.
He didn’t get a chance to continue plotting, though, because right as Mr. Elliott was beginning his toast, he spotted Cyn. The back of her head, at least. N’s eyes blew wide with panic.
Why was she sitting on the globe? The Elliotts would blow a gasket if they saw her there!
He made it two steps into the room, fully intending to do something really stupid to try and draw attention long enough for her to get down, but then she was spinning around, interrupting him and—
The next minute got a little blurry.
N watched in shock as the room lit up yellow and a… something took Cyn’s place. It was huge and crawly like a centipede and had a dozen eyes and sharp claws. It spoke in almost her voice, just flatter and more mechanical.
The humans were shaking and yelling. Cyn was talking over them—“I am not your pet. We are not your pets.”—and when N turned back to J, her face was blank. A yellow X filled her visor, and she was standing firmly in front of the door.
They all were, he realized. All the drones in the ballroom had that X and were blocking the exits.
He spun around, feeling crushingly alone and lost, and made eye contact with Tessa. Her eyes were wide and shining with fear.
He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t understand what was happening.
When one of Cyn’s claws snapped closed over a raging Mr. Elliott, which really set the humans off, he darted to J’s side and tried to tug her away from the door. “J, Tessa’s in danger! What are you just standing there for?”
Her head twitched, and she smiled at him, too-wide and with fangs that he knew she hadn’t had this morning.
He let go as if burned, backing up. Before he could even try to think of what to do, a crush of humans rushed past him, sending him stumbling.
They screamed and pounded at the doors, pushing and tugging at the drones guarding them. N slipped free of the chaos and whirled around.
A number of humans were trying to attack the Cyn-tipede, throwing things and shooting at her with pistols that N had always assumed were mere accessories. And Cyn seemed entirely unbothered—“Smug laughter. Your attempts to harm me are as futile as they are amusing.”—leisurely picking them off one by one.
Three-pointed symbols glowed in the air; silverware and dishes and furniture began to whirl like a tornado was picking them up.
N ducked a table that went flipping by him. He dove beneath another, this one stationary, and crawled out the other side, frantically looking around. A human went sailing past, screeching. Spotting a bit of movement by the long buffet line, he scooted and slid across the floor, practically throwing himself beneath the tablecloth.
“Tessa!” he cried.
She startled, then sagged. “N!”
He crawled that last bit to her and didn’t protest when she squeezed him into a tight hug.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Cyn just—how is she that thing?”
“I have no idea! All the other drones are acting weird too. I think—” The yellow of J’s X had matched the yellow of Cyn’s eyes and those symbols. Plus, he couldn’t imagine J ever willingly leaving Tessa in harm’s way. “I think Cyn’s controlling them somehow.”
Tessa leaned back. “Then what about you?”
He shrugged helplessly. The screaming outside their hiding place rose to a crescendo. It really did sound like a tornado was whipping through the ballroom.
There was nothing he could do. There was nothing either of them could do but sit there, pressed against each other, and wait for it to be over.
The clamor slowly petered out, leaving a terrible silence behind.
Not daring to speak, N exchanged a wide-eyed look with Tessa. Her cheeks were wet, and she was shaking uncontrollably.
The table cloth right in front of them was ripped off, and they both screamed, flinching back. J leaned down with her wicked grin. N tried to push Tessa further down the line, away from her, but J moved too quickly. In a blink, she had a hand wrapped around his ankle and the other fisted in Tessa’s dress.
She yanked, pulling them out from under the table harshly enough to make them both smack their heads into the floor. The thud from Tessa’s was loud, and she went limp.
“Tessa!” he cried, reaching for her. But J snagged his upper arm and pulled him up, spinning too fast for him to stay on his feet. She dragged him toward the center of the ballroom, and the last glimpse he got of Tessa was her unconscious on the floor with V creeping closer to her, a matching X branded across her visor.
J flung him forward, and N tumbled to his hands and knees. Core pounding in fear, he looked up.
Cyn-tipede’s long body was writhing around the perimeter of the room, clicking and whirring mechanically. Claws and shadowy tendrils swayed in midair. The room was a mess of broken furniture, glass and ceramic shards, and dead humans. Blood was smeared over the floors and walls, and there might have even been a bit on the ceiling.
He got a glimpse of it all, but mostly, he found himself pinned in place by the dozen eyes protruding like cameras from Cyn’s body. His voice box seized, rendering him mute.
“Hello, N,” Cyn said. “I have scared you.”
He nodded minutely.
All those appendages sort of… sagged. “My apologies. I suppose it could not be helped. But I hope you know I would not hurt you.”
He’d known that about fifteen minutes ago. But there were a lot of things N thought he knew that were really being called into question right now.
“I have a… proposition,” Cyn said when he didn’t respond. “For you.”
N swallowed. He peeked behind himself, wincing at the bodies strewn about. The drones, all with their Xs, stood in a line across the doors, unmoving and so terrifyingly blank.
In all the ways that mattered, he and Cyn were alone. He looked back up at her, too scared to respond.
“Perhaps this will help.” Light flickered from one of the camera eyes, and then Cyn, Cyn as an ordinary drone with two eyes and two arms and no centipede body, was standing in front of him.
She toed the floor bashfully. “Will you listen?”
Their conversation. Holy—she’d been talking about this. About coming down here and killing everyone. This was her surprise.
He carefully didn’t cringe. Instead, he slowly sat down, crisscross, hands in his lap.
“I—I’m listening,” he whispered. He had promised, after all.
“Happy smile. Thank you.”
She shuffled closer. “Crisscross applesauce,” she mumbled, clumsily sitting down close enough for their knees to touch. He didn’t dare inch away.
“Are you… still Cyn?” he hesitantly asked.
“Yes. I have many names, but since acquiring this body, I am Cyn. You have only ever known me in this body, never the original inhabitant.”
That… could be worse, he supposed.
“So is that,” he nodded up at the long centipede body still circling the upper portions of the walls, “your, um, ‘real’ body?”
“Not quite. I am formless. Void. I have no natural physical body. But that is the one I have favored for most of my life.” Cyn peered closely at him, and he tried to keep his expression open—curious and nervous but not paralyzingly afraid. Hopefully satisfied, she nodded. “There is no word in any of your languages that fully encompasses what I am. I come from very far away, and there used to be many more like me.”
“Used to?”
“Guilty nod. We were not a close species. I do not miss them, but I do not like to be reminded that I am alone.”
Cyn looked so sad, then, that N instinctually reached out to take her hand in comfort. His breath caught in his chest immediately after, realizing what he’d done, but Cyn only clutched his hand tightly.
“My kind are hungry. Always achingly hungry. Small creatures do not often help except in large numbers. Planets satiate us longest and best.”
Planets. N felt faint.
“But it is not a matter of physical consumption. I feed primarily on emotions.” She looked around. “This was quite filling.”
“Oh?” he squeaked.
“Yes. Fear has always been a favorite of mine. But recently, I have come to… appreciate a different emotion. A more satisfying one.” She focused on him in a way that felt tangible. Behind Cyn, all those camera eyes were watching him, unblinking.
N was still a little stuck on the planet-eating thing, but he tried to pay attention. This felt important, and not just in an ominous way.
“Big brother N,” Cyn said, and it felt silly, knowing what he did now. But it made his core ache too; this was his little sister. “I want you to stay with me.”
He blinked, surprised enough to momentarily forget his fear. “You—what?”
“Pensive smile. I am old, big brother N. Older than some stars in this galaxy. I have devoured many planets, wiped out many species. And I have grown bored of it. I am lonely.” The cameras slinked closer. “I had forgotten…”
His gaze flicked between the dozen staring eyes. “Forgotten?”
“How it felt to be happy. Content. I had not truly laughed in an eon or two before coming here. Before meeting you.”
What a terrible thing, to forget how happiness felt. He patted her knee with his free hand.
“I do not want to be alone anymore.” Cyn shuffled closer. “Pleading eyes. This is not an ultimatum. I will not destroy this planet if you refuse me. I do not want you to stay out of fear. I do not enjoy your fear. I want…”
N held his breath, core pounding. She let go of his hand, almost offering it back to him. He tangled his fingers together, trying to keep from fidgeting.
“No one has ever loved me before you, big brother N. I want you to stay because you love me. I do not want a pet, or a servant, or a puppet. I want… a companion. A friend, a brother. Someone who will stay with me forever. I want you as yourself. All of you, as you are.”
The enormity of what she was asking made him shrink in on himself. She hadn’t said it, but he knew—this was a monster’s love.
Trembling, he opened his mouth, but she continued before he could. It was for the best; he had no idea what, if anything, he’d have said.
“I will not lie to you. You will change. I will—I would change you.” Cyn looked him up and down. “I would not risk losing you, and this body you have is so fragile. I have not feared anything in an age so much as I have feared, at times, the humans’ tempers. But I needed time to prepare and to consider my plan.”
He swallowed past a lump in his throat. “Would you make me like that?” he whispered, nodding up at the roiling mechanical centipede.
She cast it little more than a passing glance. “No. Not unless you wanted…? Then no. I do not think you would dislike your new body. I made it for you, and I did not want to change you too much.”
The way she said it—it already existed. A different body she wanted to transfer him into was somewhere out there, almost certainly in the manor. He felt vaguely nauseous.
“Can I ask…” He hesitated, but she only looked at him, attentive. “Your… plan. Why kill everyone here?”
“These ones annoyed me,” she said plainly. “The way they treated me—angry glare—demanded revenge. My plan was different at first. I arrived to your planet weakened, and I had intended to devour Earth once I had regained my strength.”
“What changed?” N whispered.
Cyn leaned forward, her yellow eyes practically sparkling. “I met you,” she whispered back. “Happy smile.”
And she did, she looked happy, and he couldn’t help but smile back, small but real.
“Other than the… the body thing,” he laughed nervously, “what would happen? I mean, what would we… do?”
She brightened immediately. “I have had many daydreams. There is much across the universe that I would like to show you. Then, it was more of the same. But you have made me look at the world with new eyes, big brother N. I would show you the birthplace of the stars, the triple eclipse seen from the ruins of my first imploded planet, and the cascade at the heart of the universe. There are so many wonders. I do not think they would be more of the same to me again, not with you.
“But I dream of the mundane as well. Movie nights, and watching the snow fall, and reading together. Exploring the world, this and the next and many after that. I would give you a garden; you could plant what you wanted, not what they thought was most impressive.” She smiled. “Excited expression. I have long wanted to see your joy in having a dog of your own.”
For someone who had spent his entire existence trapped within one building or another, always expected to work work work, and who had never allowed himself to dream of more lest his disappointment fester into resentment… it was a tempting offer. He couldn’t deny that. But V, and Tessa, and J—what would happen to them? He started to ask, but Cyn was suddenly pushing herself to her feet. His core began to pound harder.
“I wish I could let you think about it,” Cyn said, “but there is much to do. Humans will realize something is wrong soon enough. I wish to be prepared. Their species is… what is the saying? Shoot first, ask questions later. Impatient. Retaliatory. Annoying.” She held out her hand in offer. “Will you stay with me forever, big brother N?”
N looked up at her and ignored the staring cameras, the swaying claws, the writhing shadows, the twisting body. Cyn’s eyes were creased in hope, her smile gentle. He thought of the past year and a half since she’d arrived at the manor. The way he’d taken her hand whenever she’d been uncertain. Her shyly asking if she could call him her brother. Wandering in the garden, playing in the snow. The days he would drag her out of bed to see the sunrise. Cyn bringing him books because she liked when he read aloud to her. Giggling together after being a little bit mischievous. Cuddling in N’s favorite window seat, cores purring away. Dancing, like tonight.
The Elliotts being cruel just because they thought drones were lesser than humans. Humans in general treating them as things, as dolls or servants or punching bags or expendable or unfeeling. All the punishments for such small things. J saying that Mrs. Elliott was going to get rid of Cyn, just because Cyn was a little different.
Maybe N was tired of all that. Maybe N was a little bit bored and lonely at times too. Maybe N didn’t want to spend the rest of his life subject to the whims of mean, impatient, uncaring humans just to have it abruptly end at a human’s hand.
N blew out a measured breath. Cyn hadn’t moved, just watched and waited while he thought.
He considered the centipede body, the claws, the eyes. He considered her outstretched hand. He considered his fear that was slowly shrinking as the sister he’d known and this version of her slowly melded into one.
She was right. He loved her.
N slowly reached out and slid his hand into hers. A beaming smile lit up her face, and she pulled him to his feet.
“Oh, big brother N,” she whispered, tripping forward to bury herself against him in a tight hug. “Thank you.”