Freedom is a language written in blood. It has always been this way; from the French Revolution to the American War of Independence, the Warsaw uprising, and Spartacus’ slave revolt.

  “Bottle.”

  Maybe comparing the liberation of little ol’ Creektin from mimic mayhem to that was taking it a bit far.

  “Towel.”

  Then again, this was the first time the US had been attacked on its mainland since said war of independence. No amount of dumping tea into the harbor was going to send a strong enough message to the mimics. They knew what we were about, and we knew the same about them. And they probably didn’t even like tea.

  They’d put down their chips. But Custodians always had another hand to play.

  “Stuff it tight,” Addy commanded.

  “I already did.”

  “Well, tighter. We can’t have anything spilling out.”

  “Phrasing.”

  “I didn’t know you watched Archer.”

  “The heck’s Archer?”

  With three gallons of turpentine, twenty beer bottles, and a little bit of creativity, you could apparently make quite a lot of molotov cocktails that were half as expensive as the cheapest ones in the shop. Or so a certain tanuki claimed. How she learned that, or from whom, she didn’t say. I decided that her practiced enthusiasm was answer enough and focused on the plan.

  So there we were, two magical girls hanging out behind a taco bell, making molotovs.

  I mimed picking up a phone and putting it to my head. “Addy, what’s the plan again? Over.”

  After a moment of scrutiny, Addy followed suit. “Isn’t it obvious? Over.”

  “I know,” I grinned at her. “I just wanted to get some incriminating evidence so I can report you to the tanuki police for vigilantism.”

  “Please. You’re not Medusahead,” she said and ohh boy, guess we’re doing this now.

  I lowered my hand and gave her a serious look. “You know, if she gets some dirt on you, even something that just makes you look bad, she could ruin your reputation."

  “If she does, I probably deserve it.”

  “No you don’t Addy.” I roughly shoved a soaked rag into a bottle for emphasis. “Look, if she is bullying you, or threatening you in any way I’ll have a—”

  A what? A friendly talk? I’ll hug her to death?

  “It’s not like that.” She rubbed her face, letting out a low, agitated growl. “The Society assigned her to my team, making her my responsibility, without asking for my opinion. I made it very clear to her, that I didn’t need someone babysitting me if they can’t even match me in the field. For two years, I treated her like crap, ignored her because I was always on the hunt, always looking for a lead no matter how cold. She is in her right to resent me. You are in your right to do the same. I left you too, after all.”

  She paused, and I figured if she wanted to say more, she was going to say it whenever comfortable.

  My heartrate spiked when our hands touched, and she worked her mouth, opening and closing it again. The uncertainty was killing me.

  Eventually, we finished with the molotovs. She stood up, a broody air clouding her head. I thought that this tension might have lasted forever, before she grabbed my arm.

  “Sam.” My eyes met hers. They were a deep, wonderful yellow. “I’m… obsessive.”

  “I understand.”

  “No you don’t. I can’t stop something I’ve started at all. I’ve been trying to let that part of me go, but it won’t let me go, you see? It’s like I’m running around with a weight staked through my heart, but every time I yank at its chain it feels like I’m one step away from just exploding.”

  My heartbeat rose. This was exactly what Mochi warned me about. What if the bit about magical girls constantly exploding wasn’t a joke?

  “I’ll help you get revenge,” I pledged. “Revenge likes company, no? Or was that misery?”

  “I don’t want revenge,” she hissed, staring at her claws. “... I want my mentor back. I want my friend to take a step out of the hospital. I say that, but in truth, I just want to stop feeling like shit.”

  Well, I could help with that.

  I stepped forward and gave my fuzzy friend a hug. She tensed at first. Slowly but surely, that tenseness melted away. Her breathing slowed. Hugs always helped. They were practically a cheat code to interpersonal relationships.

  Eventually, I did have to let go, if only because there was still a mimic invasion going on.

  “C’mon,” I said, with a sly grin. “Let’s molotov some mimics. I forgot my lighter though.”

  Addy twirled her sword counter-clockwise until it was the size of a pocket knife. It was a swiss army knife with way too many gadgets. She flicked one of them open and a small flame appeared.

  Her sword had a lighter. And a corkscrew. And a nail file.

  “That’s a load of bull.”

  It’s really cool though.

  Despite her current mood, Addy preened. “It’s a good sword. It’s a keepsake, from my time with my… with mentor Irina.”

  Her demeanor fell immediately. There was loss there, and no little amount of regret. Guilt. Just brushing at the edge of what she was feeling had me thinking of Becca.

  I still don’t know where you are.

  I put a hand on her shoulder. “Tell me about it sometime. Whenever you’re ready—”

  “She taught me everything, she and Mason. Everything. I didn’t deserve them. They didn’t deserve me.”

  “Addy, no, that isn’t true.”

  “It is!” She whirled on me. “It’s my fault, what happened to them, mine! I was too slow, too unserious, not committed enough to being a living weapon. But I’m committed now.”

  “No, bad tanuki, you are not a weapon.” I tried to scoop her up into another hug but she bashed her way out of this one.

  “What do you know? Living and dying and living and dying… you’ve been at this for a week, how could you possibly empathize?” Her teeth were bared and her voice came like a throaty growl. It sent my heartbeat rocketing up, sweat damping the back of my hands and neck.

  No running away Sam, not anymore.

  I rose to my full height, meeting her gaze and tone of voice best as I could. “Because I can understand the part of you that is still just a frightened girl trying her best. A weapon is a tool. It doesn’t lash out at people. A tool can’t do anything without someone wielding it. Is that what you think you are?”

  “WHAT ELSE CAN I BE!?” She asked and kicked a fire hydrant on the sidewalk right next to us with full force. The solid metal thing dented, now standing at an angle.

  “Sometimes, it’s all I want to be,” she said in a much quieter voice.

  “That’s not a healthy thing to want, Addy.” She just shrugged apathetically. I took a deep breath. “Let’s cool down a bit. Do what we came here to do.”

  She scoffed. “Sure. Burning things always helps quiet the voices.”

  Shit. What was I supposed to say to that?

  I pointed at the bottles filled with incendiary chemicals. “They’re, uh, nice molotovs.”

  “Mason’s recipe. Dissolve some styrofoam in it and you’ve basically got napalm. Stuffing bits and pieces into bottles would take too long, so all we have is the runny type instead of the sticky type.”

  “Well, that is… good to know! Bet Clem could fix us something better and cheaper. Well, maybe not cheaper. We’d have to pay in our blood.”

  “Sounds like a witch. Are you friends with a lot of witches?”

  “Only the one.” I placed the last of the bottles in my backpack. Moe emerged from the backpack and mimed vomiting over the side. He gave me one heck of a stink-eye. “Oh! I didn’t think about the smell. Sorry Moe, but can you endure it for a bit? Maybe you could build some extra rooms into the backpack in the future?”

  He scratched his beard before diving back down.

  I turned to Addy. “Alright, time to go? We sure took our time.”

  “Mimic nests don’t tend to move much. And being careful with flammables always pays off. I burnt the fur off of half of my arm once. Before I had a human transformation.” She sniffed, as if recalling a bad memory.

  “The nests are still producing mimics, right? So better to take care of them earlier than later.”

  She nodded with a grimace. “Agreed.”

  We made our way through Creektin. Progress was quick since we’d already cleared out most of the mimics nearby. A few still tried their luck and were found wanting. It took less than half an hour until Addy finally stopped in front of a patch of woodland surrounded by seven-foot stone walls.

  “We’re here.”

  The iron bar-gates were closed, a blood-smeared key sitting on the other side just out of arm’s reach. I stared up at where the wall peaked with wrought iron spikes, and at the copse of trees growing behind them. Saint Johann’s Graveyard. An ominous place, even without shapeshifting alien invaders.

  Addy just vaulted the thing in a single jump. I followed after, taking my time to ensure I didn’t skewer myself.

  “You’re sure this is the place?” I asked, hopping down on the other side.

  Addy took a first step forward. “Are you doubting me?”

  “It’s just… the cemetery? Really? Of all places?”

  Addy snorted. “What, afraid of ghosts?”

  “More like annoyed by. And frequently inconvenienced. Creektin’s graveyard is really big for a town our size, and really, really old.” I looked back and forth, trying to find the source of my encroaching dread.

  Addy stopped, her ears flicking to the side. “What is it?”

  A shrill voice crowing from behind made me jump. “Oh hello-o, why if it isn’t my little Sammy.”

  I whirled around. “Oh. Hi Aunt Petunia.”

  There she stood: A ghostly matron dressed in the high-fashion of 1844, abandoned by the lord because she prayed to the wrong cross, or so she claimed. During our first encounter she had introduced me to the concept of ghostly post-mortem decay when she tried to scare the life out of me. Her face barely held any resemblance to the woman she once was, skin hanging in thin strips on a translucent skull, eyes long evaporated. She was a bit of an evil ghost. Very unpleasant.

  Addy looked confused, squinting in the direction I was talking. “A ghost?” She whispered. “I can make her out, faintly.”

  “Be glad about it,” I whispered before blooming into a smile. “Aunty Petunia! How’s the weather? How’s death? Still invested in haunting ouija boards and keeping the surrounding housing affordable?”

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Oh, you know me, enjoying drinks and the misfortune of others wit’ me partners over yonder.” She gestured airily with a tattered fan to a ghostly duo sitting around a ghostly round table. They were sipping ghost tea. The saccharine smiles were nauseating, theirs and hers both. “Mister and Misses Alibi have been outdoing themselves with a mean poltergeisting streak, but alas, things are a bit dull wit’ none around to spook. But enough about me, look at you! Barely gone two years and already sprouted two more limbs, like some under-manicured fern.”

  “It was my choice, mostly.”

  “How very… progressive, darling, just like your choice of apparel.” And now she was making me conscious about my armor. It was nice, just… lacking in overall theme. At least she wasn’t commenting on how I was wearing hotpants plus uncuttable leggings underneath. “Misplaced your petticoat again? I daresay you’ve been influenced by the continent.”

  “What did she say?” Addy asked.

  “She’s insulting my sense of fashion,” I whispered back.

  “And what is this creature?” she said, circling around Addy like a haughty swan.

  “This is Addy. I’d be obliged if you didn’t insult her,” I said. “She’s my partner.”

  “Surely, only in crime I hope.” The skeleton-ghost laughed. It was a mean laugh. “I’m just messing wit’ ya. Been a while since you visited. Wit’ how you dress, I thought you might be out fishing for a cold — or a husband. A nice, rich, English husband you can wring like a duck. Then again, you always carried yourself more on the French than the English side of propriety.”

  Few people used the word French as an insult like she did. She was stuck in her moral framework two centuries out of date, and Addy was exposing a frankly scandalous amount of ankle. And quads. And thighs.

  Stop drooling.

  “Let me guess, she’s insulting me next?” Addy asked.

  I wiped my face. “How’d you guess?”

  “Poltergeists gotta feed off of something,” she responded with a shrug. “Fear is their favorite dessert.”

  And there I went, regretting my lack of magical education once more. Dangit.

  Aunty Petunia didn’t stop at calling Addy French. She was busying herself with finding every derogatory description and naming them in turn. “ —furry, fugly, a fictitious lack of frivolity. Scandalous. Ignominous. A tramp.”

  “Aaand we’re officially past my point of comfort. Aunty Petunia, it was nice meeting you, but I think it’s time I send you to God.” I motioned to hug her. There was a crackle in the air. Suddenly, she was standing behind me.

  “Ah-hah, I’ve seen your trick plenty of times,” Aunty Petunia tittered. “You won’t be sending me to Charon that easily.”

  I jumped forward, four arms poised for a death grip. She crackled, and disappeared again. A pile of fallen leaves blew underfoot and I slipped. Misses and Mister Alibi were laughing. Dangit, poltergeists sucked.

  Petunia twirled and pranced and occasionally floated out of the way, flexing her vocabulary. “Engard! Olé! Daneben! Miss—”

  She dodged a Samantha that walked right through a tombstone.

  “Eh? Since when are you a wi-IIIIITCH!?”

  The real me finally caught her, hugging her until her ghost stuff poured out from between my arms. With a puff and a flash of light she was gone, her scream echoing on the wind. She would be back in a month or so. This wasn’t the first time I’d taken this dance. Suffice to say, with everything from Addy’s mental state to the lives at stake, I was a bit annoyed.

  I whirled on her two companion cronies. “Well?”

  “Y-you can’t catch both of us,” Mister Alibi said and disappeared. Miss Alibi made a scandalized face in his direction.

  I stomped over to her and slammed my four hands on the arm and back rest of the chair she was floating on top of. “Where’s the mimic nest?”

  “The wha—?”

  “The dang nest! With pink creatures! Aliens! Do. You. Understand?”

  She made like a bobblehead figure. “I-I saw something like that. F-follow me.”

  The ghostly lady downed her tea and floated off. I motioned for Addy to follow me and by extension, her.

  “You know, you would have looked like an absolute lunatic yelling at empty air if I didn’t have enough soul to sense that there was a presence close by,” she whispered.

  I froze. “Believe me, I know. I screwed up more than one friendship that way.”

  “Hmph,” she hmphed. “I thought having special eyes was all rosy. Apparently not.”

  We strode past gravestones ringed with flowers, past old oaks and young saplings growing on these well-tended grounds. They looked considerably less well-tended now though, withered flowers sitting by tombstones mottled with fresh dirt.

  Someone had been digging. There were mounds of dirt scattered all around, one big one nearly as tall as I was, all marring the well-kept paths. However, there were surprisingly few open graves.

  “T-there,” ghostly miss Alibi said, pointing a bony finger at a bunch of trees and shrubbery. “Past the untended path. Something came and made its home there. Something devious and malign.”

  I inclined my head. “Thank you.”

  “No problem. I-I’ll get going then. Lots of graveyard to haunt, haha.” And then she was gone, leaving me and Addy staring at the patch of uncut greens.

  “Feels like we’re walking into an ambush,” I commented, switching from four eyes up front to two eyes in the front and two at the back of my neck. The added sensation of 360° vision was still quite a strain, but I could handle it as long as I wasn’t running.

  “That’s because we are.”

  I turned to her. “Shouldn’t we be more worried then?”

  “You can worry if you want,” Addy said.

  She circled the copse of trees for a while before leading us to an oddly out-of-place family crypt. It was roughly ten feet tall with a stairway leading deeper down barred by a metal fence. Creektin was an old town, and we did have two or three crypts. It was just that this one was inscribed with the most odd scenes, as if someone had uploaded an AI image generator into a stonemason’s mind and let the catastrophe unfold. Jesus, or what I was pretty sure was supposed to be Jesus, was copy pasted dozens of times in way too many places, one scene of the last supper featuring Jesus listening to Jesus while in the background Jesus quietly betrayed Jesus to Jesus. The hands were all wrong and screwed up and the whole thing had the oddest yellow tint.

  “It’s a mimic, isn’t it?”

  Addy threw a molotov cocktail between the bars and down the stairs. Immediately the entire structure lurched, metal bars turning into long teeth, black beady eyes growing by the dozen across its front. The entire nest was a mimic, only the smallest part peaking out of the water. The rest was likely buried underground where it was safest and most hidden.

  It roared, deep, bassy, and eldritch-warbly. A very unpleasant sound. Almost as grating as Petunia’s voice.

  I scrambled back, arms readying three different weapons as the ground broke around the building.

  “Just as I thought,” Addy said with a dismissive huff. “The thing copied parts of a tree. Roots are simple enough if it wants to leech nutrients from the soil. But that means the fucker can’t move.”

  The building shivered as she carved a deep wound along its side and tossed a molotov into it. The black mimic blood practically exploded into flames, burning up in a deep purple smoke that shifted from faces to buildings to body parts like a fever dream.

  “The heck!?” I jumped back. “Addy, you never told me that their blood is flammable.”

  “I mean, it’s eldritch oil.” She tossed another molotov at the back of the thing. It tried to shed its burning shell, stone-colored and stone-textured skin sloughing off like layers of mud. Addy in return took her laser SMG and blasted two, three, four holes into it. The next molotov penetrated much, much deeper. “It’s magic-infused, highly caustic stuff, but you could probably use it as fuel if you purified it, and did something about the acid eating your engine apart.”

  The mimic lurched again, mouth puckering as it vomited a broken skeletal body out the front. A skeleton that had mimic-shaped guts. I blinked, realizing that I’d just been standing there. The body twitched, and I blasted its stomach with a Toothpick until it stopped moving.

  The mimic nest belched out some more, deathworms writhing in a pile of limbs like living spaghetti a la mort. They were easy kills. They had exactly one way to exit the underground part of the nest, which led them straight into my arms, pun intended.

  We fell into a rhythm, Addy poking and torching the nest, and me blasting whatever it spat out of the front.

  “Has anybody tried to domesticate them before?” I asked.

  “Yeah, a startup in Hoursville.”

  “Where the heck is that? And what happened to them?”

  “Look up a map if you’re interested. And… look up a map.”

  The mimic belched some more worm-infested bodies. This was going to take a while. So, I did. “It’s just pointing to an empty space in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Exactly. Evaporated into thin air you might say. Except a bit more literally.”

  A shiver ran down my spine. That could have happened to Creektin. It still could happen, presuming we failed to charge the barrier with the full 150 tons of mimic bodies.

  Come to think of it, the mimics were kind of screwed, right? We’d taken out most of their heavy hitters. Their deathworm nest was burning brighter than any wickerman. Every mimic they lost gave us soulcoins, xp, power. They had the Ur-mimic, a smart infiltrator that knew how to use weapons, but there was only so much one of them could do. Once we reached the quota, it didn’t matter if we found it or not. It would get dusted like the rest.

  This whole thing was only so difficult because… well, both Addy and I started out entirely underleveled and underprepared, and the third Custodian slot was taken up by a pacifist gnome.

  I tossed a couple molotovs down the nest’s mouth, creating a wall of fire. A smattering of 1.5 kilo mimics and deathworms tried to crawl their way out, and were summarily blasted apart by lasers or burnt to a crisp.

  “Hey Addy,” I said, but she already knew what I was going to say.

  She grunted, cutting another deep gouge out of the nest’s size. “This place isn’t big enough to create whatever that spider-moose was.”

  My shoulders sagged. There had to be another nest, one much, much bigger. “I thought so.”

  Suddenly, I felt Addy tense up. “Sam, get away.”

  The mouth of the nest contracted before launching forward like a friggin’ xenomorph.

  I dodged, more out of luck than skill.

  Then it puckered and puked an entire person at me. His eyes were rolled into the back of his head and his face was so gaunt I almost couldn’t believe that he’d been human once. His mouth tore open in a silent scream and yep, those were long, pointy, vampire chompers.

  Did I mention he was also on fire?

  The flaming vampire launched itself forward, knife-like claws digging into lose dirt. It hit me straight in the chest. I tumbled to the ground, fighting, clawing, pushing it away. It singed me wherever I touched it and wherever it touched me. Claws like knives raked across my skin, bruising muscle despite the uncuttable cloth around it.

  Its teeth clamped around my neck and that was when my flailing turned into fullblown panic because shit, there was a vampire on my neck and I could feel it sucking my blood and shit, shit, shit—

  My smokescreen puff went off, and the vampire ate a full face of it. It didn’t like that apparently, loosening its grip just enough that I finally managed to push it off. The thing had monstrous strength. Even with stats I just barely managed to roll it off of me.

  I scrambled to my feet. It didn’t take more than a fraction of a second for it to do the same. Its burning face turned to me, visible even through the smoke.

  Then it leapt, tore me to the ground again, teeth glistening as it bit into… nothing.

  “That’s my Illusory double, bitch,” I said as I cocked the Spab-4 and blasted the vampire’s head off.

  But that didn’t kill it. Its whole body twitched, twisting backwards on its limbs and scuttled away. It tore out of the smokescreen and I ran right after, only to watch it get skewered through the stomach by Addy.

  The deathworm piloting the vampire’s body squirmed, then stopped moving at all.

  “Fuckin’... you didn’t tell me your town has a vampire problem,” Addy swore.

  “I wasn’t exactly aware of that either!” I hissed back.

  Addy blinked. “I… sorry. Not your fault. Are you okay?”

  “Nothing a time bandaid can’t fix.”

  “Chrono bandage.”

  “Time. Bandaid.” I slapped one on the biggest wound and smoothed it out. “So, turns out vampires can be piloted by deathworms.”

  “They’re incredibly susceptible while sleeping,” Addy said. “They just stop feeling wounds after a certain age. Mimic keeps ‘em asleep while they slowly hollow their brains out, piloting the body at reduced capacity compared to if it allowed the vampire to be awake. Too much risk of them overpowering the deathworm’s strings otherwise. Look, hollow skull — this one didn’t have a brain left at all.”

  “They make for good deathworm hosts?” I guessed.

  “From the worm’s perspective? The best.”

  “Well, that was the only one it got so far,” I said. “Lucky us that we cornered it before it could cause any more mayhem.”

  “Yeah. Lucky.” Addy sniffed. “The nest should be dead now. Check if you got anything from it.”

  [You have assisted in killing: Mimic Deathworm nest (minor)]

  [Soulcoins: 156->276]

  [Congratulations! You have reached level 21]

  [Congratulations! You have reached level 22]

  [Body +8, Sense +4, Mind +4, Soul +2, +2 Free Stat Points]

  That was a lot of stuff. Like, seriously a lot. Mimic nests were friggin’ XP and Soulcoin pinatas. And with this, I had enough for two Mk4 Prickler laser-submachine guns, plus some extra battery packs.

  Shopping, shopping, don’t think about vampires, time for shopping…

  I felt a clawed hand alight on my shoulder.

  “You’re really alright?” Addy asked, tone serious.

  “As long as I’m not turning into a vampire from that bite. The system would tell me if I was, right?”

  “Pretty sure. Vampirism isn’t contagious like that. It takes a whole ritual and… a mixture of fluids.”

  “Like drinking a vampire’s blood while they drink yours?”

  Addy stared at me. “Yeah. Sure. That works too.”

  “Anything else I should know?” I asked.

  “Besides that their bodies naturally harden as they get older? Stay away from any one older than a couple hundred years. And watch out for vampires with spells. They naturally develop exactly one every five-hundred years or so.”

  “They get stats and spells by sleeping? Sounds like cheating.”

  Addy shrugged. “Everybody cheats at magic. You just gotta cheat better than the other guy.”

  We cleaned and reloaded our weapons, checked for any stragglers, ate some more sandwiches. I was already on my third one — ugh, still dry — when my Pricklers arrived. They were bulky weapons, clearly designed as an upgrade to the Toothpicks in terms of heatsinks, vents, and battery capacity. I lifted them by their grips, feeling the heft and admiring its balance, the feel of the grip in my hands, and the ease of reaching various power settings with a flick of a thumb. Convenience and user safety was evidently a top priority this time around. The magazines didn’t even explode when overheated. They just got really, really hot.

  They looked good in a pair. Maybe they looked even better as a quartet. Thoughts for the future. I was as giddy as Lily when Mom finally allowed her to get a pet frog.

  Why did something so simple inspire so many emotions in me, you might ask?

  Because lasers. Are. Cool.

  “So. Vampire, huh?”

  “Vampires are magical creatures,” she said. “They are huge chunks of energy. It’s why older vampires are basically impossible to kill — they can just remake their bodies, or linger as a gas cloud for a while.”

  “And this one?” I asked.

  “A lesser spawn. Weakest of the weak. If it had lived for more than a few decades as a vampire we could’ve had a conversation with it. If it had been a couple hundred years old, we would both be dead.”

  “Oh.” Now that was a sobering thought. Sure, I had an extra life in the bank, but I didn’t want to have to loot my own body again, not when something like that was still around.

  “Addy, I’ve been thinking. We’re the monsters that beat monsters, yeah? So, what do we do when there’s a monster we can’t beat?”

  “Play for time.” Addy grimaced. “In the vampire’s case you offer them wine. They’re more agreeable when they’ve been drinking.”

  “Hm.” Playing for time, huh?

  While staring at the broken vampire’s corpse, I suddenly had the oddest feeling. It was a sinking feeling, as if someone was transmuting the breakfast in my stomach into lead inch by inch. It wasn’t because I was tired; that weight was hanging on my limbs instead of my core. I wasn’t channeling any emotion to charge my spells — I had so many with different emotions that I’d have to sit down to get them all topped up.

  Not many mimics. Lack of defense means they’ve written the nest off. Why?

  — nests are important long-term, but not short-term.

  The nest is too small. Another one. They have another one.

  People disappearing. Not killed, disappearing.

  Deathworms. Dead people. Vampires. Custodians.

  People as magical batteries.

  The system only makes quests for what it can see.

  The hairs on the back of my neck bristled.

  “Addy. I have a really bad feeling.”

  “Why’s that?”

  I couldn’t explain it. Literally, putting it into words would make me sound insane. “I… need to go home. Now.”

  Because of all the small steps I was able to take, all the victories big and small, I neglected to figure out which game the enemy was playing. And I just realized how they could turn the tables on us.