Kate had turned her back on him.

  Some part of Sam—the part that was still human, still him—felt relief wash through his impossibly transformed body. She'd looked right at the second refrigerator in his tiny kitchen and dismissed it as strange but not threatening. Now she was walking away, moving toward his bedroom, probably to check if he'd collapsed in there.

  A new part of Sam—the ravenously hungry part—watched her retreating form with something that felt horribly like excitement. Kate was pretty in an alt-rock kind of way: late twenties, with a sleeve of colorful tattoos climbing her left arm and a nose ring that caught the light when she turned her head. Her dark hair was cut in an asymmetrical bob, longer on one side, with a streak of faded purple near her temple. She was wearing an oversized band t-shirt—The Smiths—and pajama shorts. She’d clearly rushed over without bothering to change. Under other circumstances, Sam might have appreciated the view. They'd flirted casually in the hallway a few times, bonded over shared taste in music, traded emergency keys with promises to water each other's plants. Normal neighbor stuff. Normal human stuff.

  Now his new senses drank her in with a predator's appreciation. The way her shoulders moved beneath the thin cotton of her shirt. The rhythm of her heartbeat, audible even from across the room—quick with worry, quicker still with the instinctive unease of prey that doesn't yet know it's being watched. The warmth radiating from her body like a beacon in the dark, a heat signature his transformed eyes could practically taste. The subtle flex of muscle in her calves as she walked. The gentle pulse visible at her throat.

  So close. So easy. She wouldn't even see it coming.

  FEED.

  Sam held himself motionless. It took every shred of willpower he possessed, every fragment of humanity still clinging to the edges of his consciousness. His form wanted to move, wanted to flow toward her, wanted to—

  No. No no no. I won't. I'm not a monster. I'm Sam. My name is Sam Pierce and I am not going to hurt her.

  Kate disappeared into his bedroom. He heard her calling his name, heard the concern in her voice shift toward alarm as she found the room empty. Then he heard her talking to someone—not him. The cadence of a phone conversation. One-sided dialogue punctuated by pauses.

  She's talking to 911.

  Good. That was good. Help would come. Maybe they could...maybe someone could...

  Could what? Fix this? Look at yourself. Look at what you've become. He needed to reach Eden and her Paladin friends, but he couldn’t exactly place a call in his current condition.

  Kate emerged from the bedroom, phone still pressed to her ear. "—no, I don't see him anywhere. The stove was on, there's smoke, and the place is a mess, but he's just...gone. I swear, I heard him…"

  She stopped in the main room, her gaze sweeping across the chaos of Sam's apartment. The mess of weeks of neglect. Then her eyes settled on the kitchen corner, and she frowned.

  Sam felt her attention like a physical weight. She was looking at him—at the refrigerator he'd become—and comparing it to the original that stood just a few feet away. He watched confusion spread across her face as she registered not just the presence of a second fridge, but how identical they were. Same scuffs. Same dents. Same collection of takeout menus held by the same novelty magnets.

  "That's... weird," she muttered, half to herself and half to the dispatcher on the phone. "There's two of the same—I don't—"

  She stepped closer.

  No. Stay back. Please stay back, Sam thought desperately.

  A shudder rattled through Sam's reshaped form—involuntary, uncontrollable. The hunger was clawing at his insides now, drowning out thought, drowning out everything except the primal imperative that had been carved into whatever he was becoming.

  Kate jumped at the movement, her eyes going wide.

  "Did that just—" She took a half-step back, then stopped. He could see the thought forming behind her eyes, the terrible mundane logic of it: Maybe Sam is trapped inside.

  She reached for the large bottom compartment door.

  Sam's restraint shattered.

  The freezer door at the top of the Sam-fridge burst open with a wet, tearing sound—revealing not frozen food but a mouth. A massive, gaping maw lined with jagged teeth that had no business existing in any earthly creature. A tongue—too long, too flexible, more tentacle than muscle—uncoiled from the depths and lashed out, dragging across Kate's cheek in a motion that was half taste, half caress.

  Kate screamed.

  It was a delicious sound.

  FEED!

  Kate stumbled backward, still screaming, her phone clattering to the floor as she fled toward the bedroom—the only direction she could go. Sam lurched forward on stubby fridge feet, moving in awkward hopping motions that shouldn't have been as fast as they were.

  Some tiny fragment of Sam watched in horror as he pursued her down the short hallway. Felt his transformed mouth snap at the air inches from her back. Watched her trip over his shoes at the threshold of his bedroom and crash to the floor.

  Stop. STOP. I don't want this. Please, please, please stop—

  But he couldn't stop. He could barely even think through the raw hunger anymore. There was only the chase, the prey, the desperate need to—

  Glass exploded inward from his bedroom window.

  ***

  I have to beat Emergency Services there.

  The thought pounded through Zoe's mind as she rocketed through the pre-dawn sky, white armor gleaming, wind screaming past her helmet. She'd thrown caution entirely to said wind—no stealth, no subtlety, just raw speed and desperation. The low altitude sonic boom she’d created would likely raise some alarms. She didn’t care.

  She was well over halfway to Napa when she realized the problem.

  Fuck. I don't actually know where Sam lives.

  "Delta!" she called through her comm. "I need Sam's address!".

  “Hmm? Oh, yes! Of course you do,” Delta replied before muttering, “Because I have to do everything around here.”

  A waypoint flickered into existence on her HUD, along with an optimal flight path that curved around a cluster of buildings and angled toward an apartment complex on the east side of Napa. The additions were helpful, but something felt off. Normally Delta would have anticipated the need, would have been two steps ahead of her.

  "Delta, are you okay? You seem, well, especially assholey."

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  A pause. Then, uncharacteristically candid: "I am...operating at diminished capacity. The attack from the dungeon core's embedded virus caused more damage than I initially assessed. Several of my parallel processing systems are currently offline while I effect repairs. I apologize for any reduction in service quality."

  Coming from Delta, that was practically an admission of near-death.

  "Just hang in there," Zoe said. "We'll figure this out."

  "Your concern is noted and...appreciated." Another pause. "I am monitoring the 911 call from Sam's neighbor. She is still on the line with emergency dispatch. I can patch you into the audio feed if you wish."

  "Do it."

  A click, and then a woman's voice filled Zoe's helmet—scared, breathless, on the edge of panic.

  "—I don't know where he is! The apartment's a mess, there's smoke damage, the stove was left on. I'm worried he might have collapsed somewhere, or—" A pause. "That's... weird. There's two of the same fridge in his kitchen? I don't understand how—"

  Zoe pushed herself faster, the buildings below becoming a blur.

  "—did that just move? I think—maybe he's trapped inside? I'm going to check—"

  A wet, tearing sound.

  Then screaming.

  Zoe's blood ran cold as inhuman snarls erupted through the audio feed—deep, gurgling, wrong in ways that made her hindbrain want to flee. Kate's screams grew more distant, accompanied by crashing sounds, the thud of running feet.

  "Delta, what the fuck is happening in there?"

  "Unknown. However, based on Kate's GPS data and audio triangulation from several neighboring smart devices, I believe the altercation has moved to the bedroom." A window on Sam's approaching building pulsed red in her HUD.

  Third floor. Corner unit. The window Delta had highlighted was dark.

  She didn't slow down.

  Trust the armor. Trust the armor. Trust the—

  Zoe hit the window at full speed, arms thrust ahead with Gale held tight, letting the weapon and her Paladin armor take the impact. Glass exploded around her in a glittering cascade, and then she was through, rolling across a bedroom floor strewn with dirty clothes and crumpled sheets.

  The scene that greeted her made no sense.

  A dark haired woman—Kate, presumably—was on the floor near the bed, scrambling backward in pure animal terror. Looming over her, wedged awkwardly in the bedroom doorway, was...

  A refrigerator?

  A moving refrigerator, with its freezer door hanging open to reveal a nightmare mouth full of jagged teeth. A tongue like a pale tentacle was extended toward Kate, dripping something that might have been saliva.

  Zoe launched herself at the thing, Gale singing as she slashed at the tentacle-tongue. The curved blade bit deep, and the refrigerator-monster made a sound that was half roar, half mechanical grinding. She followed up with a concentrated blast of wind that rushed in through the shattered window, driving the creature back through the doorway and into the main room.

  "Stay down!" she shouted at Kate, not waiting to see if the woman complied.

  The monster was already recovering, that horrible mouth snapping at the air as it oriented on her. Zoe hit it with another wind blast, then another, driving it back across the cluttered living room. Each impact sent it stumbling on its stubby fridge-legs, buying her precious seconds. The way it moved under her gusts was off, like it was lighter than a fridge should have been.

  Kate first. Get the civilian out.

  Zoe spun while slamming the bedroom door shut. Kate was curled in a fetal position, hyperventilating, her eyes showing white all around. Shock. Zoe grabbed her anyway, hauling the woman up and into her arms with strength her slight frame shouldn't have possessed. Her armor’s micro-servos whirred as they assisted her already enhanced muscles.

  "Hold on," she said, and launched back out the shattered window.

  The drop to the parking lot was nothing—a few seconds of controlled descent, wind cushioning their landing. Zoe set Kate down as gently as she could manage, noting distantly that the woman had stopped screaming and was now just shaking, staring at nothing.

  "Help is coming," Zoe told her. "Stay here."

  Then she was airborne again, rocketing back up to the third floor and through the ruined window. The bedroom was empty. Cautiously opening the door, the living room beyond was quiet. Too quiet. Her raw nerves burned with anticipation.

  Zoe moved forward cautiously, Gale raised, her new Hush Field activated to muffle her footsteps. The apartment was small—kitchen and living room combined into one main space, a short hallway to the bedroom, probably a bathroom somewhere. Nowhere for a refrigerator-monster to hide.

  What she did see: a totally normal seeming refrigerator, standing in its proper place in the kitchen corner. She kept a wary eye on it as she took in the rest of the room. A small couch against one wall. Two recliner-style chairs that made the cramped space feel even more crowded.

  Sam seriously needs help with redecorating after this, she thought absurdly.

  Sirens wailed in the distance, growing closer.

  Where did it go?

  Zoe stepped further into the living room, scanning for any sign of the creature. Maybe it had fled out the open front door? Or was it that motionless fridge in the kitchen? Was it just trying to blend in? To ambush her?

  She was almost to the kitchen when one of the recliners moved.

  The seat cushion hinged upward like a toilet seat, revealing a massive tooth-lined maw identical to the one she'd seen coming out of the freezer compartment before. That horrible tongue lashed out toward her helm-covered face, and Zoe barely got Gale up in time to hack at it.

  It’s a god damn mimic! She realized. Pablo’s gonna nerd cream his shorts when he hears about this.

  Gale bit deep. The recliner-thing made a sound of pain—and then, impossibly, it spoke.

  "Zooooooooh-eeeeeeeeeee...h-h-h-help...mmmmmmmme..."

  The words were distorted, gurgling, barely recognizable, but she knew it. She'd heard it just hours ago, at Denny's, belonging to a shell-shocked man with yellow eyes and square goat pupils.

  Oh god. Oh fuck. The monster is Sam!

  Everything changed in an instant.

  Zoe pulled back, no longer attacking, her mind racing. Sam. The randomized integration Delta had warned about. The cellular instability. He wasn't being attacked by a monster—he had become one. And he was still in there, still aware, still fighting for control.

  "Sam! Sam, can you hear me? I'm going to help you, but you need to hold on!"

  The recliner-shaped thing shuddered. The mouth snapped at the air, tongue writhing, and Zoe couldn't tell if the movement was intentional or involuntary. Another distorted sound emerged—maybe words, maybe just animal noise.

  Gotta be careful. I don’t want to kill him. But I can't let him loose either.

  Maybe it was that extra point of Intellect but a possible solution occurred to her. Her other upgrade, Solid Air. Zoe focused, drawing on her upgraded abilities. The air around the Sam-mimic-thing compressed, hardened, crystallized into a cage of nearly transparent force. It wasn't pretty—more like a rough box than anything elegant, but it was solid.

  Reacting, Mimic-Sam threw himself against the barrier immediately. His recliner-form bounced and jostled, that terrible mouth snapping at the hardened air. He was strong—stronger than she'd expected—and each impact sent shudders through her concentration.

  Outside, the sirens were here. She could hear vehicles pulling into the parking lot, doors slamming, voices shouting.

  Zoe gritted her teeth and held her focus on the cage.

  "Delta," she gasped through the comm. "I've got Sam contained, but I don't know how long I can hold him. The monster is Sam. Repeat: the monster is Sam. I need extraction, and I need it now."

  A pause. Then Delta's voice, strained and thin: "I... am attempting to calculate options. My systems are...still compromised. Give me a moment."

  "I don't have a moment!" Zoe could hear footsteps in the hallway now. Pounding on doors. Someone shouting about checking the building. "Where are the others? There are responders in the building. If they find us—"

  The Sam-thing slammed against the cage again, and this time she felt something crack in her concentration and in her construct.

  "The others are nearly there," Delta said. “I’m updating them on your situation now. Hold on.”

  “Right. Hold on.” Zoe felt another impact against her Solid Air construct stab into her temples as Sam lurched and banged within his prison.

  Seconds that felt like minutes ticked by as Sam attempted to break free and Zoe did her best to hold her Solid Air prison together. Then, as if he’d tired himself out, Sam went entirely still. If she hadn’t just seen him moving, and the conical tip of a pink tongue peeking out from under the seat cushion, Zoe would’ve had a hard time believing the recliner-shaped mimic was alive. Within her helmet, sweat trickled down her face and Zoe wished she could wipe it away, but didn’t dare raise her faceplate.

  “Don’t…want…” Sam choked out the words, like each one was a battle. “...hurt…you.”

  “Trust me, I don’t want that either,” Zoe tried to infuse empathy into her voice, but the words still sounded aggressive to her. “Just hold it together a little longer, Sam. I got—ungh”

  The words of reassurance morphed into a startled grunt as the recliner-shaped monster that Sam had become gave a feral snarl and began to thrash again.