Kit

Our wisdom flows so sweet. Taste and see.

TRANSMIT - initiate Colombian signal - RECIEVE - initiate scarcity measures - THE KIDS AREN'T ALRIGHT - initiate hunger cadence - I JUST EXPORT FLOWERS - the natural becomes unnatural - FRONT TOWARD ENEMY - the red mist descends - EMBRACE - the pain of accomplishment - I DON'T NEED LUCK, I HAVE AMMO - initiate a Chechen education - WHERE IN THE WORLD IS CARMEN SANDIEGO? - initiate security protocols - DETROIT, ROCK CITY! - initiate the secret frequency - WITNESS - Katherine Moreno.

Listen, sweetling. We are all around you. The city is clean, the sun beats down through a clear sky, buildings glow a myriad of colors. A thousand tiny eyes watch a small girl make her way from shop to shop. From each, she's turned away. A roaring capsule, strength from the earth, metal shaped by men, powered by a fire from the Machine-Goddess herself. The girl dragged to the capsule, roaring away.

This little one is curious. Her Queen had long been thought infertile, despite all the workers giving her the flower she liked best. We could hear the blood rushing through her veins, see the eyes dilated beyond focus. A twitch, as she falls. The little one rushes to her, panicked, screaming.

Time carries on, to a different bedroom. Men shouting at the little ones, the same flower wrapped in the unnatural film of the Machine-Goddess' blood. They cry out, "Swallow it!" Our little one does as she's told, as do two others. Like her, they are bound by the hemp-fiber, a token squirm of resistance is all they can muster. The twitch, again, as a boy falls to the ground. The rushing, intense, then stops entirely. The harsh tones, the frustrated pacing. "Fucking bag must've broke." The skins changed again, cleaner than she'd worn in dozens of moon-cycles. Taken to a roaring bird, we lose her.

We found her again in the New World, shaking, terrified. A white room, men with stars on their jackets. The meddlers, the ones you call CIA, giving her a job.

The roaring, again. We find her in a cage, many little ones like her. The men with sticks of metal, wood, and fire arrive. The little ones freeze, one is dragged away. Our little one is struck.

The flowers are natural, sweetling. Why the commotion?

The moon cycles past, a dozen times or more. Our little one is in the company of green men. Hunting. Stalking. Talking. The flower-seller's final days, but he does not know it. One green man has taken our little one under his wing, she takes to the sticks of strength and fire. He finds the fire underfoot, disappearing into the mist.

Everything happens. We stand outside.

Initiate the iron curtain signal. Our little one joins the men with sticks of strength and fire in the mountains of the North Caucasus. It was known as Ichkeria, in times past. You may know it as Chechnya. The land has been in turmoil since before the first of your World Wars, sweetling. Assassination, genocide, kidnapping, rape, torture, deportation, and above all else - a desire to be free from oppression. Oh sweetling, not all monsters are secret. Some are even human.

Enter the Siberian.

He knew our little one by what the other men called her, Morena. Mara. Sweetling, she is no undead hive-matriarch. Those men, tough as they imagine themselves, would last not a second in the true-Mara's presence. Not even this one. However, through the smoke, and the fire, the two of them did what the others could not. Survive.

Six moon-cycles pass, from the end of her stay in the Caucasus. She came so close, sweetling. Like many, only scratching the surface. Ealdwych hidden, beneath layers of human blindness. Her stay in Crawley, uneventful. Just the roaring of the metal birds. The insanity of the nothingness.

Something in her has changed. Do you feel it, too?

The location, Detroit. A club downtown. Our little one sticks to the corners, the shadows. A fight breaks out. Her pint is spilled. It is over before it ever began. Another woman smiles, offers her a card. "I want you to work for me."

Initiate the now.

The Technicolor spectrum has enveloped her. A blanket she'll need, to go with the fire carried by those around her. Protection from the coming darkness.

She has not tasted our wisdom yet, sweetling. But she will.