III
The next day, Bruce awoke to find the she-devil gone. There was no note, but he felt vaguely sticky. He sat up from the creaky mattress and looked around. He had not had the time to really survey his surroundings before he dozed off. It was small, and unfamiliar. The double bed took up most of the bedroom’s space. Feeling a bit claustrophobic, he stood and wandered to window, still naked. Hopefully, his clothes were in the same building. Looking outside, it was either very early or very late with the sun still hiding on the other side of the horizon. Only a few of its rays were illuminating the outside world.
Bruce tried to flip the lightswitch by the bedroom door. It did nothing. He tried one in the tiny hall. It too did nothing. The electricity was out. Cautiously walking through the small house, Bruce eventually found the front door. Once he opened the door and saw the surreal effigy of a half-eaten little girl’s body split vertically down the middle and resown around a pike. A design emerged from a variety of limbs, organs, and withered eyes wreathed around her. The smell hit him, and Bruce slammed the door and retched all over the tile inside the front door.
It was a normal day of duty for Seven. After she had abandoned Bruce in an abandoned town the Legion had already swept through, decimated, and subsequently abandoned north of the U.S.-Canadian border, she was not sure when she would be able to see him again. She was moving sandbags at the moment and trying not to pierce them with her claws. If she did, Four would put the mittens on her again, and Seven hated the mittens. Drudgery was mind numbing, but it allowed her mind to wander so long as she kept her pace up.
She doubted Bruce would get very far in her absence. The ones that lived in the big houses seemed to her to be the least fit to survive outside their towns and cities even if they were the most fit to survive within. Finding the time to go visit her new pet would be tricky though. Fortunately for Seven, she was a much better teleporter than she let on and could sneak extra trips in on her “downtime.” Like most skilled practitioners, anything that could bother her she could just disappear away from. As far as she knew, there was no real way to track teleportation besides precognition or divination magic, and those were hardly accurate if one threw enough wrenches in the gears.
While it was impossible and unrealistic to conceal her ability in its entirety for fear of getting turned into a taxi and never advancing within the legion, her breed was so full of weird quirks that no one really thought twice about her never getting quite good enough to bring others or equipment with her or carry gear. Teleporters throughout the Master’s forces with very few exceptions never advanced in rank because they were a threat to the officers’ power. Even the spell version of the ability was a closely guarded secret even if it was known of by the general populace of magic-types. Seven doubted it was as difficult to cast as those who wielded it made it out to be. So, the natural teleporters were kept as grunts and used as tools only. So long as she was not too good of one, she could use her ability without being degraded or stymied too much in her pursuit of advancement within the Legion. Impeded, maybe; stagnated, not on her watch. Sadly, they would probably win the war in an instant if they were simply taught how to teleport into the offices of all the key sites and carry out their tasks, but political survival of the higher ups always took precedence for obvious reasons. If the secret got out, someone else would take over and suppress it for the same reasons.
Still, the deception had paid off, and now she had secured for herself the reward that only the generals and their inner circles had access to, her pet human. The Legion had executed a good many men for in nasty ways for show and tell and would continue to do so; they were not called the Legion of Terror for nothing. But, it was an open secret among the Legionnaires that a good number of those men had already been used and abused by the officers and handed out and passed around as favors until either they became a liability or someone royally screwed the pooch and needed to be punished by having their pet taken away. Generally, soldiers were killed on sight for the sake of practicality unless there was an actual, convenient opportunity for taking prisoners of war. Once the Legion had established a reputation, those willing to surrender had become nonexistent, and kamikazes and other forms of creative suicide became a constant thorn in the Legion’s side when dealing with enemy forces. This was especially so if the human forces had lost hope of victory or retreat.
The ones who got the nasty executions that made the humans’ headlines nowadays were captured civilians. Sometimes they were dressed up as soldiers. Still, those humans many times were put to use. The lower orders would not dare try to secret away men in most cases and give them to their superiors for fear of the consequences. Although they had all been promised mates to use and enjoy, that was supposedly their reward for loyal service after the war. During the war, the privilege of a mate fell to the elite. Seven did not believe things would change after the war. Why would they? Would those who lead them suddenly step down and establish new rule that did something other than benefit them? The Master had promised it, and the Master was their highest leader, but who was to tell that he had been telling the truth to begin with? She fought for the Legion anyways. What was she going to do, defect for the humans? The humans killed her kind on sight, as they rightly should if they had any common sense. They were conquerors after all.
Despite her nonexistent options of political allegiance, she had a unique opportunity. Seven feigned inability for her teleportation on two levels, carrying capacity and endurance. By also feigning exhaustion after successive jumps too close together, she avoided being sent on carrier pigeon missions and could sneak in a lot of mischief in her long return times. Seven was skilled at getting a job done quickly and then shaving off precious minutes for herself. No travel time was a big bonus to this. Now though, she had a pet to take care of which would eat up a lot of time, but it would be worth it knowing she had stolen away something that was so valuable as to be instantly claimed by the upper echelons of her order.
A lot of prep time had gone into this. Originally, Seven had not known for what she was preparing and squirreled valuables away for the same of preparation itself. Caches and hideaways filed with misappropriated supplies had been built up over the brief few years the Legion had been active, and even a few stones have managed to fall off the wagon and into her pocket. She never dared steal the one that would turn her into a Cardian. Why waste all this effort to lock herself into a weak, dead end form? No, she safely stole a couple that could be valuable for barter or personal use in the future.
It was a shame she could not do easily pilfer from the stores in the Legion’s control. They were fat, rich stores from all the things they had pilfered from their briefly oppressed and quickly razed holdings. For now, she would need to resign herself to scavenging off of corpses and disappearing things from transit of both enemy and friendly, non-Legion forces but never from the Legion. She was not crazy.
In the days following the conquest of the human town and the surrounding area, she had an opportunity to sneak out. Much of the Legion need not sleep, and neither did Seven. Fresh from the test tube she had developed in, Seven was good at mimicking others, and she had mimicked her sleeping sisters early on, quickly discovering that one did not work during the sleeping hours. Others had had the same idea, and they had been caught for their carelessness. Seven rarely snuck out for mischief, especially not from encampments or barracks. In fact she had time to herself once in a blue moon such as when on a mission with a small detachment such as the lazy cretins of her squad or, in this case, during revelry. The troops were kept most happy if they were allowed to imbibe the humans’ alcohol and smoke their cigarettes in a brief, two or three day long celebration of rooting out the humans and making them submit. Most of them did fairly quickly. Sadly, it was difficult to sneak a quickie with one of the humans before having to hand them over to the ranking officer. If the ranking officer wanted a turn, then they would need the collusion of enough subordinates to hide the act from all the others, and the price of such loyalty was usually a piece of the action. Frankly, it was infeasible for everyone to get a turn with fun-fun rape time if more than a couple were involved, so it was a rare opportunity. Those who got caught were usually killed. More grunts could always be quick-grown in one of the Master’s labs. The costs of doing so may have been high, but it was less costly than that of disloyalty.
So, in the wee hours where none would miss her, Seven vanished from a location where none could possibly be looking for her and stopped back in the crackerbox house where she had left Bruce. She brought some food she knew humans ate with her and was excited to have some time with to to spend on him. Naturally, she was put out when she could not sense Bruce in the immediate area. Where had he gone? She went outside and ignored the gory effigies erected throughout the town. She clambered up nimbly to the roof for a better position and peered about. The place was a ghost town. After all, the Legion had been here. She would vastly prefer him to be inside and unharmed or else she would not get any more fun out of him, but he would be easier to spot outside.
As it turned out, she needed only go one house over to see a bundled form from the kitchen window. It was chance that she had glanced through the small part of the window that was not blocked off with things obviously meant to obstruct view, but it was mostly a niggling feeling from her extrasensory gifts that she did not consciously notice. It was sleeping on the couch there. She teleported through the window and inside soundlessly. It was Bruce. There was a box of dried foodstuffs open next to him, and he had clothed himself. Ah, well it was good that he had found something to eat somewhere. She had been mildly concerned. While she only needed to feed on some hapless livestock or prisoner’s life force once every week or so, she could go much farther between meals if she gorged herself. She placed a hand on him and gently roused him. Those that slept usually hated to be woken, but Bruce had seemed to be enjoying the sex when she first kidnapped him. Her intent was a repeat of that, plus Seven was already unconcerned with fragile sensibilities like sleep deprivation. It was also highly useful for bending one to your will.
Bruce startled awake and looked ready to scream, but Seven shut him up by smooching him and trilling a delighted, rolling sound in her throat. He relaxed and reciprocated. The two of them were getting better at overcoming the differences in their jaw structures and actually titillating one another’s senses. The first one to pull away was Bruce. “It’s you,” he said, relieved, “I thought one of ones sneaking around outside had gotten through the barricade.”
Seven glanced over to the front door and living room window and indeed saw many things pushed up to block ingress. “How did you plan on getting out?” she asked curiously. She also wondered why he did not do this at the place she had left him at. There was hesitation in Bruce though, and Seven’s head turned to look him dead in the eye, unnerving him. Seven’s attention then turned to the hallway and the bathroom door which was open. There was probably a window in there that he had not blocked off completely or did so in such a way that he could easily get through. It was not great, but it was probably all he could do reasonably while also satisfying his other needs. Well, she did not mind so long as Bruce satisfied her needs, namely the one to put him back inside her.
“I can get out through a window in another room down there,” he said, pointing down the hallway
Seven noted that he must have seen her attention that way and saw no loss in admitting the truth. It would seem she had need to appraise just how clever her new pet was, but that could wait for now. At that moment, he was compliant. “I brought you some food,” she said, proudly handing over a container to Bruce.
He curiously accepted it and rotated it over to inspect. His eyebrows went up. “Cream corn?” he said, almost disbelieving. Seven was unsure whether that was a good thing. Then, she saw the corners of his lips curl; that gave her the impression that it was at her expense, and an ugly expression formed on Seven’s face, contorting key locations into an expression of displeasure. Her lower lip parted and pulled down, revealing her conical teeth.
Bruce’s expression straightened, but she could still feel the mirth coming off of him. “My situation is the butt of a few jokes,” he said, “There is a tradition to give food to the needy to keep them alive, do good, and above all make ourselves feel good and maybe benefit from a tax credit or writeoff. Creamed corn seems to be disproportionately donated to these things to get rid of it from the pantry.” He looked up to her, lips curling into a saccharine smile. “Now I’m the pauper,” he continued, “I’m grateful because food is food yet one cannot live off of cream corn.” Bruce’s smile was saccharine. He stood up and dusted some crumbs off of his shirt and pulled out a manual can opener before heading towards the kitchen. It was still dark out, so he bumped into a couple things along the way.
Most of that, Seven did not understand, but she understood the feelings it generated in him. Most of those feelings were of course silly. Human diets, it seemed, were stupidly complex. All Seven needed was to leech off of some living things for a bit and she was golden. Still, she would need to grow accustomed to it if her pet were to stay alive. Ugh.
In the kitchen, Bruce was already twiddling the knob on the can opener and cutting through the metal container. Seven cocked her head. Humans did weird things to their food.
He found a spoon and began eating the stuff cold. He made a face while he masticated but swallowed and went back for more. Seven was wrinkling her nose in disgust just watching the slop get spooned in.
Bruce had been watching her while he ate and smiled at her although she could feel the same emotions coming off of him as when he was lamenting his corny fate. “So,” he said, “what do you guys eat? Going off your choppers I’d say meat, but all of your folk are biologically very weird to us.”
Seven opened her toothy maw and ran the tip of her long tongue over the front of her teeth. “Life force,” she stated simply. Although she could not comprehend why, that always seemed to horrify the humans. It was not like Seven and her sisters’ kind needed to kill everything they ate before they ate it.
At that, Bruce’s face screwed up. “No, seriously,” he said disbelieving her claim.
A tinkling giggle escaped Seven. “I’d demonstrate, but I want you healthy enough to fuck me when I come by,” she said, licking her chops in the same manner as she had when they were discussing food. Bruce swallowed his cream corn at that proclamation.
“Ah,” he said. Eyeballing Seven speculatively, he said something that perplexed her, “You know, I don’t even know your name?” He chuckled at this but Seven could tell he was expecting something. What though, she could not tell.
Seven’s face screwed up. “What?” she said, not understanding. She was being engaged in a dance and did not know the steps. This besides perplexing her was starting to get her hackles up. Literally, she could feel her hackles rising the quills of her mane.
“My name is Bruce,” Bruce said. He stood and made some sort of formal gesture the meaning of which Seven vaguely discerned as introductory. He continued to be expectant after that. It made Seven want to backhand him across the room, but while that would make her feel good, she would not get what she wanted, namely a healthy pet that she could fuck.
After a brief pause, she did the same thing seeing no real harm in doing so, “Seven. My… name is Seven.” There was a note of confusion in Bruce’s eyes that further frustrated Seven.
“Where’s that name from?” he inquired in a polite tone that masked the confusion and sneaking suspicions in Bruce’s mind. Seven’s hackles rose further.
“It’s a number,” she said. Somehow, Bruce’s “Ah,” and the surge of sympathy she felt from him was just serving to piss her off further. By now though, Bruce had noticed the effect he was having and instead sat down and proffered a space next to him by patting the couch cushion. At first, Seven had wondered why he was sleeping on a sofa instead of a mattress, but she then noticed the torn up carcass of a spring mattress with points of metal protruding everywhere facing towards the closed curtains of the living room window. It was probably already like that when Bruce got here. Tearing that up would have been too time consuming to be worth sacrificing the mattress.
Reluctantly, Seven sat. She had come her to get a simple, uncomplicated lay, and her dumb pet was annoying her with trivialities and rituals. Maybe if she wrapped her tongue around his cock again, he would shut up? No, that would leave his mouth open to be annoying. She would stuff his head between her legs again. Yeah, that sounded like a plan.
Bruce opened her mouth to speak again, and Seven grabbed him by both shoulders and looked him dead in the eye. “Shut up,” she growled at him. He did so. At least he was only annoying and not completely maddening like some of her fellow grunts in the Legion were. She frowned at him, furrowing her brow. Looking at him gave her funny feelings looking at the pretty girls in the Legion and other chapters of the Master’s forces had never given her. Consciously, she knew it was because she was firmly in the corner of being attracted to men, but strangely it was one of those feelings that being aware of its cause and its effects did not alleviate its effects in the slightest. She still wanted him, and that bothered her.
Without warning or asking for permission, Bruce picked up one of her clawed hands and began inspecting it. “What are you-” she cut off and let out a breath. His thumbs had begun rubbing her palm and shifting the muscle of her hand in interesting ways. Seven’s eyes closed, and she enjoyed it. “What are you-” she attempted to finish, letting out another breath, “-doing?”
“You’re stressed,” Bruce said simply. It was also in Bruce’s head that if he was a source of pleasant feelings he was less likely to be killed or forgotten, but hopefully he could put up the front of pure altruism. He continued working on her, spreading her clawed digits and running down their undersides up to where her claw started. Seven wriggled but tried to keep her hand still. “Let’s do the other one,” Bruce said, reaching even as Seven sidled up to him. She stuck her nose in his neck and breathed in the sweaty scent. She resisted the urge to lick. The comingling scent of the blood pumping within his neck was doing funny things to her.
“Where did you learn this?” she asked. In the Legion, most of the dominance plays had to do with getting yourself off. This was different, but she felt in charge because she was on the receiving end. As things continued, she could not resist and ran her tongue across Bruce’s neck. He stiffened and inhaled in a voiceless, stuttering noise. His pulse changed, and that delighted her.
“Oh, I’ve got some practice,” Bruce replied as casually as he could, but Seven saw through it and immediately figured out what Bruce meant. She could feel it in the forefront of her mind what the truth was. He did this to others. Irrational jealousy clouded Seven’s mind, and she fought the urge to bite him.
“Who?” she inquired, not quite masking how she felt about this “who” in question. Bruce gave her a sideways look and caught the look on her face. He paused. Taking leave from his role as a masseur only further darkened Seven’s mind.
“My wife,” he said, looking at her. It was a plain statement, and Seven could not sense any real emotional attachment to his “wife” nor could she really discern what this role was. Maybe he had had someone who prostituted herself to him just like his current role to Seven herself? Or, maybe that home was that of his mistress and it was not actually his. No, he seemed too clever for that role and did not have the makings of a manservant. That coincidentally was one reason why she wanted him to serve her. It was irrational, she knew, but you could not help what stirred the loins.
“What’s that?” she asked innocently. Internally, she winced. She had said that a little too sweetly.
“Ah, my mate,” Bruce clarified. There was still no real emotion there, just an explanation and a flash of a pretty blonde woman with lips painted red and lustrous jewelry. There was an ugly sneer on her face. She reminded Seven of some of her superiors in the Legion and successfully gave Seven something to redirect her ire towards, safely away from Bruce whom she wanted to keep. Now vindicated, she decided not to pull on that particular thread. Instead, she relished. And leaned into Bruce’s chest, kissing him again. She inserted her tongue in his mouth slowly and actually took time to enjoy a little game trading caresses and prods rather than her violent intrusion before.
After a bit, she could not contain herself. She broke the kiss and grinned at him. “You know, she probably got captured by the Legion,” she said happily, not bothering to hide how she felt about that. She wrapped her arms around his trunk under his arms and kissed him again. This time Bruce broke it.
“Ha! Good riddance to bad rubbish,” he said. His shared feelings about it further confused Seven though. Bruce saw the look on her face and clarified. “We had a nasty divorce,” he said, and then he clarified preemptively, “We separated. We had a prenup, a contract stipulating the terms of such a break, but she successfully got itself dismissed by a judge and then tried to take control of my kids’ trust funds.” His lips clenched as if he had bitten into a lemon. “I managed to stop that and get some partial custody and use the trust to force some compliance in my children’s upbringing. Nothing but the best for them. That damned bitch did enough damage to their futures by taking them out of their schooling for months to move them away.” It was more like a month and a half, but Bruce felt strongly about it.
Seven, despite being busy grinding on Bruce through his clothes was intrigued. “She brought her head up from his neck long enough to ask, “You have offspring?”
Bruce nodded, reciprocating Seven’s advances with kisses and caresses. “Yes. My oldest already has his own family. While he was still in school, he managed to secure a contract for some property and assign it to an investor for forty thousand dollars,” he bragged, swelling with fatherly pride, “He’s my boy. I could not be prouder.” There was a pause, and he clarified something just in case, “That much money is more than most make in a year. It’s a feather in his cap.” He then made a grin with a malicious bite to it. “My ex-wife could not move too far away and deprive me of seeing my children. Even the biased court would not allow that. So, she’s likely in that town at the mercies of your… friends.”
A satisfied, furious monster sat in Bruce’s gut, and it purred happily at that thought. Seven felt it and mashed her lips to his again. Some of that had gone over Seven’s head, but she got the gist. She sensed the truth in Bruce’s words and was impressed. His offspring must have been grown and gone judging by how he felt about the town’s fate. She leaned into him, forcing Bruce back against the sofa. He reached for her chest, and his hand fell flat as if missing a step on a staircase against her flat pectoral. He still rubbed that spot for her, and while Seven enjoyed that, it made her feel a tad inadequate. It was then that she remembered the surprise she had brought. She disentangled herself from Bruce. He had pressed forward to keep up their activities, but she had suddenly shifted from being a normal weight to impossibly light once more. She practically floated off and to where she had teleported in. Bruce squawked a bit indignant at being left hanging, but Seven was sure he would not be complaining soon.
When she came back with what looked to Bruce to be jars of powdered- well it looked like sugar or creamer but could be anything. They were balanced on a white brick-like package He looked confused. Seven unscrewed one of the jars and tapped out a little bit of the stuff onto her palm, slapped her hands together, and rubbed it into her chest. Before his eyes, she suddenly grew a perky pair of tits. Bruce’s eyes widened, and his eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Well that’s different,” he said, appreciatively eyeballing her bosom. They were still coated in the fine coat of black fur all over Seven’s body, but just that small change really increased her overall femininity. They looked real to. Bruce approached and tactilely inspected them causing seven to gasp. It seemed they were more sensitive than her flat pecs had been, and she almost spilled the jar.
Bruce looked alarmed, but she reassured him. “Don’t worry,” she said, “it does nothing to men.” She flitted over back to the sofa and set the jars and the brick down on the coffee table in front of it, wiggling happily. “Help me apply this stuff,” Seven said coaxingly. Bruce did not need to be told twice. He sat down on the couch and pulled Seven into his lap. He kissed the side of her neck where it met her jaw and mimicked her earlier procedure and tapped out some of the powder onto his hand and rolled it his hands. Seven opened her mouth to say something, but already Bruce cupped his hands to her handfuls of chest and began rubbing the powder in. She let out an alarmed sound, and the small handfuls of boob exploded outward. Oh, any woman Bruce had ever met would be oh so envious.
Seven actually laughed. “Okay, no more bloom powder,” she said, capping the jar before Bruce could get any ideas. He actually had not thought to make them larger than double-d’s; that would overshadow her slender frame. “I definitely don’t want to be buried under this things,” she continued but just leaned back for now while Bruce was playing with her new assets. He shifted uncomfortably when some of her quills poked him, but they were lying flat and did not do much more than poke. The buttons popped off of his trousers, and the zipper fell of its own accord much in the same way he had been stripped touch-lessly the last time, and Seven pulled back and turned around. She laid herself across Bruce’s lap on her belly. “The other jar is for the backside,” she clarified.
Bruce eyed her taut buttocks speculatively. “You already have a nice butt,” he said, appreciatively pinching Seven’s bottom. It was mostly muscle but well rounded.
She reflexively flinched but pushed her tush back against Bruce’s hand, and her tail wrapped around Bruce’s arm as if it were a tree branch. “Thank you,” she said, “but I would like to balance it out with my chest for now.”
Well, that was her decision. This time more careful with the second jar, he applied just a little bit of powder to his hands and began rubbing it into her flesh. Still, he marveled at how her backside just expanded right before his eyes. It not only got fuller, but it expanded the muscle and put a little bit of padding on top of it, and her hips and thighs. He gave her another appreciative squeeze, and he could feel that she was still taut and toned underneath the new padding. “How does this stuff work?” he asked, fascinated despite the increasing attractiveness of the she-beast’s body sending all of his blood south for the evening. All over her, his hands had already begun to roam.
Seven simply rolled her shoulders into a shrug in her prostrated position. “Magic probably. Bruce snorted, and Seven thought nothing of it. “More likely than not the powder is just a conduit for some property the plants producing it are unaware of,” she commented idly. She leaned into one of Bruce’s touches but he had stopped his gropes and caresses. Seven opened her shut eyes and glowered up at him. He was doing nothing.
“Wait,” Bruce said, “what is this ‘magic’ we’re talking about?”
Incredulous, Seven’s jaw slackened. “What do you think magic is?” she asked, fearing the answer.
“A-” Bruce paused and screwed up, “-supposedly mysterious force that is a substitute for a rational explanation of underlying scientific principles.”
Looking up and away from Bruce, Seven rolled over and sat up, planting her newly enhanced derriere on his lap and turned to face him. “Look,” she waved a hand and said a syllable. After that, a floating point of light about as bright as a candle appeared, “Magic.” Bruce seemed unconvinced.
“I’ve seen your kind do a lot of crazy things,” he said, about to continue, but Seven cut him off.
“A lot of it probably originates in magic even if it’s not itself magical. The Master who created us is a wizard. Of course he used magic,” she said as if it were the most obvious things in the world, “Poof, I exist. Bwah!” She waggled her sharp clothes at him as if teasing someone for being afraid of something trivial or nonexistent. “You can reevaluate your concept of the universe after we make with the sex.” she said, cutting off further debate by shoving his face in her newly minted rack. Rolling her eyes, she cursed, “Ugh, humans,” under her breath.
Much to Seven’s pleasure, Bruce enjoyed the modifications and was enthusiastic in his exploration of them. They tried a few new positions, and Seven despite herself found herself enjoying being bent over and grabbed by the horns. She decided not to retaliate. Despite readily embracing the afterglow of their first time around, Bruce was forced to work out this time. He started protesting after the second time, but Seven was not going to hear anything of it. She was going to get her fill while she could, and if Bruce needed to recover between his orgasms, then he could get busy using other parts of his body.
When they finally collapsed into a pile, Bruce was gasping for breath. “Hah- You’re- ah- insatiable,” he said between breaths. Seven merely giggled proudly at his accusation, sitting on top of him.
“Youma,” she said to him in chastisement. The finger wagging was just for effect.
“Ah, what?” Bruce asked, not quite catching that.
Seven cocked her head. “Youma,” she clarified. Her face screwed up. A niggling feeling told her that her ears were not deceiving her. Bruce looked too confused for that. “Y-Yo… Youma,” she said, trying to force the words to come to her. She grit her teeth and hissed. Her balled up fists knocked on the sides of her skull. She would make herself do it right.
Bruce sat up and put a concerned hand on the side of her face. “Sev-” he began, but before he could voice anything, she recoiled and vanished as if space folded in on her. “Hey, Seven!” he called out after her. He belatedly reached through the space she had previously occupied to no avail. “Damn,” he said. What had happened?