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So Unmutuals weren’t completely incapable of cooperation.

They just needed the right leadership.

Her helmet headset crackled, “Black-Two, this is Black-One. Come in. Black-Four has powered up the train and we are ready for evac. Return to Rally Point Beta immediately. Over.”

“Copy that, Black-One,” Two said, “but I’d get that thing moving now.”

“Why?”

“Because I am about to drop something extremely heavy on top of it.”

And she detonated the blow pack she had attached to the antigrav pylon of the Beacon.

The huge C-12 explosion was so violent that it startled many of the Drones into dropping their grapplers, which in turn dropped Two back onto her feet. She didn’t waste any time in dashing for the warren holes. The other three antigrav pylons struggled for a few seconds to keep the unforgiving mass of the Beacon upright on their own, but gravity emerged victorious and yanked the machine downward on one side. The plasma stream still emanating from its top cut an apocalyptic swath through the Yanme’e swarm, vaporizing Hopalong and the dozens of Unmutuals around him. It sliced the buildings Two and Three had just escaped from in half like a giant scythe.

Two dropped underground just as the first pylon hit. The tunnels immediately began collapsing around her and it was a mad dash to stay one step ahead of the flattening ceilings. She barely made it to the subway tunnel and handed Black-Three into Black-One’s outstretched arms as she stood on the back of the train car before leaping onboard herself.

The subway disappeared into its tunnel just as the remains of the fallen Beacon crashed through the platform roof.

For a moment, everyone inside the train car paused to catch their breath. The train whined quietly through the absolute darkness of the metro tube. Spartan: Black was too exhausted to celebrate.

“ETA at Pelican in twenty,” Four said after a moment, as if nothing had just happened.

Three punched Two playfully in the shoulder. “So what did we learn today, huh? If you see something that looks different from us in any way, kill it immediately and without question.”

Two just cocked her head. “We are a hell of a lot more ‘Mutual’ that’s for sure.”

“Huh?” Three said.

She watched the tunnel darkness recede back into itself behind them as the train hummed its way to the drop point.

“Nothing,” Two said with a smile only she knew was there.

THE MONA LISA

* * *

JEFF VANDERMEER AND TESSA KUM

OCTOBER 2552 [EXACT DATE CLASSIFIED], SOELL SYSTEM,

INSTALLATION 04 DEBRIS FIELD, “HALO”

* * *

>Lopez 0610 hours

Sergeant Zhao Heng Lopez stood in the cargo bay of the UNSC Red Horse, looking at an escape pod. A huge, pitted bullet. About two and a half meters long and thick, pocked and smacked by debris. Around her: Hospital Corpsman Ngoc Benti, Technical Officer Raj Singh, his helpers, the ever-silent, inscrutable Clarence, and a crack pilot named Burgundy who’d just come back from a recon mission. All of them staring at the latest catch. It was so dented the container itself almost looked like something living. Almost expected to see plants growing out of the sides. Was that all it took? Lopez wondered, to make something lifelike? Kick it around enough? Maybe.

James MacCraw joined them. Rookie. Raw. Big-boned, lanky, and freckled. Unimpressive. Maybe if she kicked him around he’d show some life.

“I’m here, Sarge,” he said, but not like he meant it. God, she hated indifference in the morning.

“Yeah, you think you’re here, MacCraw,” Benti said in a half mutter. Next to Benti—who looked so small in combat armor that seemed to eat her up—MacCraw was like another species.

Singh had conscripted Burgundy into helping pry the pod open alongside his assistants. The thing obviously wasn’t going to open easily for them—the line revealing the crude little hatch, locked at the side, almost couldn’t be seen with the number of impacts it had suffered.

“Not much to look at, is it?” Burgundy said. Lopez knew that the Marines sometimes called her “Stickybeak” because she was too curious, but she didn