Amber surveyed the debris scattered across the bed, flicking one of the empty boxes aside with a gloved hand. Hadn’t she forgotten something? Of course. The helmet. She snagged it from where it was hiding and turned it in her hands so she was looking at the front of the thing. A sort of stylized sun-burst logo. Around that, a tall silvery crest sweeping up and back from the general area of the forehead, two small knobby antennas poking out to either side and under it all the visor, a sweep of pinkish plastic with a curved notch in the middle to allow the wearer’s nose to fit. A chin strap dangled. It was hideous. It was revolting. It was perfect.

She spun the thing again in her fingers, lifted it and slid it down over her head. A bit of a tight fit, but she wiggled it into position and suddenly the whole world was colored a pale shade of violet. One last struggle and the strap clicked into place. In addition to coloring everything, the visor gave everything a sorta... what was the word... pixilated look. It wasn’t irritating, but in fact was kind of cool. Amber watched her fingers wiggle for a moment, then moved back to the battered freestanding mirror which loomed in the corner of her bedroom. She struck a pose, hands on her hips, and she studied the woman who was there in the reflection. Fairly tall, fairly curvy. A very silvery dress cut short down below and kinda built up and ... puffy... up around the shoulders, with matching gloves and boots and, yes indeedy, helmet. (A few last sandy-blonde hairs dangled, and she absently tucked them away out of sight.) The curling tubes from a tiny (but very cool-looking) “tank of oxygen” peeked over either shoulder, and strapped around her waist was a white belt with a sun-blaze buckle that matched the one on the helmet. Attached to one side of this belt was a holster, holding...

She drew the gun and pointed it at her reflection, theatrically narrowing her eyes down to cold hard blue slits. (Well, she decided to imagine that they were all cold and blue behind the pink...)

“That’s right, evil-doers! Tremble in fear! Ace... uh...” The gun and the gaze wavered for a split second... “...Galactic Patrolwoman St. Clair is on your tail!” She pulled the trigger, and the gun whizzed cheerfully while bleating a bright spray of sparks down the length of the clear plastic barrel. Satisfied, Amber successfully resisted the temptation to embarrass herself by attempting to twirl the weapon, and settled for simply reholstering it.

Well, no, now that she thought about it. She wasn’t totally satisfied. She tugged at the dress. Like any costume pulled off a shelf in some shop, it wasn’t close to a perfect fit. Along with the helmet, the waist of the uniform and the pointy toes of the tall tight boots pinched a little, while the general chest... area.. had the exact opposite problem. At least the second problem would be easy enough to fix; cram in a few socks or something. (Just like being back at Chaulker High and going to the prom with Tim Wheatley...) And as for the rest, it would only be for tonight... She pulled open the top drawer of her dresser and started rooting for something suitable to use as stuffing...

The doorbell rang.

Amber scowled, and automatically looked at her wrist before remembering that she’d had to strip off her watch to wiggle into the tight-fitting gloves. She glanced instead at the digital clock sitting on the nightstand. The helmet blurred the numbers more than anything else in the room, but she could still read them. 6:42 PM. She wasn’t expecting anyone, unless, for the very first time in her life, Patti had decided to show up early for something. And no Trick-or-Treaters, since Halloween wasn’t actually until tomorrow night... She gave herself one last quick inspection in the mirror, and considered removing the helmet. Remembering the struggle to get it on, she waved a hand in irritation and strode from the room, only wobbling a bit on the heels of the boots. (Not too bad, considering she was normally a sneakers sort of gal.) High heels. She smiled a little. Probably not the design that would be used for the uniforms of the real Galactic Patrol, if in someday such a thing ever really came to be. Quite apart from the whole vacuum-of-space problem and all this bare skin...

She crossed living room to the apartment’s front door and checked out the peephole, flushing a little in embarrassment when she banged the front of the helmet against the wood. It was... Patti, wasn’t it, out there in the hallway? Yes. Amber didn’t recognize her friend for a moment; she was wearing an unfamiliar coat: long, brown, buttoned all the way up, really ugly. Also, instead of letting it flop around loose like normal, she had her thick mass of brownish-red hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. Amber twisted the deadbolt to the unlocked position and opened the door before speaking.

“Patti? You’re early. The party isn’t for hours yet.”

“Hello, Amber.” Patti flashed a smile as she came into the room. Closing the door behind them, Amber now noticed that one thing at least about Patti was normal; she was carrying another of her trendy-type paper shopping bags with the built-in looping handles. The pink word SQUICK gaudily swirled its way down the side closest to Amber. The newcomer padded over to the battered old sofa (scavenged from the same thrift store as the bedroom mirror...) and carefully set the bag on the nearest cushion before turning to look at the sofa’s owner. Still smiling. Something glittered in the folds of the coat and shadow of her neck.

Amber raised an eyebrow, even though Patti almost certainly couldn’t see it.

“So that’s your costume? What’s it supposed to be? A flasher? I thought you were gonna go with the whole cowgirl thing.”

“Costume?” Patti blinked once, slowly, and then her fingers came to life and began to methodically unbutton the coat, starting from the top and working down. “Oh, no. I was given something so much better.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

Patti shrugged the coat from her shoulders and let it fall to the floorboards. It was Amber’s turn to blink. She was wearing... rags?

No. Only at first glance. Then Amber saw it actually was a costume, a one-piece jobbie which reached from just above Patti’s boobs down to about her knees. Well, it reached that far in places. Made of some brown material, it was ragged, but artistically so. Patti’s (admittedly impressive) rack was pushed up into sharp relief, and the rest followed her curves (deeper than Amber’s) far too well to be an accident. More than anything, it reminded Amber of the costumes in that silly play that she and Jeff had gone to see over on the Eastside a few months back, Tiny Abner or whatever had it been called. There were even a couple of perfectly square patches made of lighter (but still brown) fabric, positioned apparently at random but neatly sown into place with careful stitching.

“That’s... uh... great, Patti. You’re... what... a hillbilly or something?”

Patti laughed. It wasn’t her usual hearty guffaw but a weird flat tinkle. She did a sort of twirl before coming back to rest again. Like the surface of a pond that had a rock tossed into it.

“Oh, no. Something much, much better. I’m a slavegirl.”

“A slavegirl.” Amber deployed both eyebrows this time, as she folded her arms over her chest, feeling the puffs of fabric shifting against her skin. “Oh, for crying out loud. Pete put you up to this, didn’t him? It’s just the sort of lame-ass crap he’d pull. I can’t believe you went along with it.”

“Pete?” Patti shuttered her brown eyes again for a long second, and for some reason, for the first time, a small chill stroked down Amber’s spine. When Patti blinked like that... her face seemed to be so... blank... Still dead water...

Also, Amber belatedly realized, Patti wasn’t wearing any shoes, and her feet were splattered with...

“Oh, no. Stupid little Pete wouldn’t begin to have the brains. Don’t you understand who gave it to me? Who blessed me with it?” Patti lifted her chin a little, and Amber noticed for the first time that there was one more piece to the costume: a wide metal(?) collar circling Patti’s neck. Mounted on the front was a sort of symbol or something. A disk surrounded by a thick ring; it was hard to be sure what it was really made of, what with the visor blurring it, but the words ‘gold’ and ‘iron’ went through Amber’s mind. There were no markings on the ring, but somehow it still seemed to move, to be... spinning? And the disk was going around the other way, just as fast and...

Amber felt her eyes widen a little. There was something there, after all. Words flickering. Spinning. It was almost...

fascinating...

But at the same time totally irritating, as if a really good band was rocking away on a bitching song, but doing it with one of the lead guitars being played completely out of tune. The more she looked, the worse it got, and someone was stabbing her behind her left eye with an ice-pick and

“Gah!” Amber tore her gaze away and blinked away the flashing spots. Slapping her palm against her forehead, she succeeding only in rattling her skull inside the helmet. This didn’t help much. Or maybe, somehow, it did. The world stabilized. “What the hell’s the matter with you? What is that thing? Are you trying to blind me or something?”

There was no reply.

She glared in Patti’s direction. The redhead was standing just like before, beside the sofa. Hands aligned carefully at her sides. Chin tilted up so she was staring at the ceiling.

And in the hollow of her throat the thing was still there, still spinning. Much faster now, and twirling out shapes that became words. Blurry and fuzzy and eroded pink, but hammering insistently.

GO TO THE BAG

TAKE IT OUT

PUT IT ON

GO GO GO NOW

One piece of Amber’s mind jerked her right foot forward, taking the first step.

GO TO THE BAG

But another part, buried somewhere deeper down, balked petulantly.

TAKE IT OUT

This is stupid. I don’t wanna to do this.

PUT IT ON

I’m not gonna to do this. I’m gonna

GO

GO

GO

Behind her, Amber heard the sound of a knob turning and her front door creaking open; the super kept promising to oil the hinges...

A new mind-layer, forged of something cold and silvery, glanced not at the door, but at one of the framed and glassed paintings that Amber had hung on the wall over the sofa, after inheriting them from her Aunt Marion. Yes, reflected in the glass she could just see that there were at least two figures there, one of them quite large...

In a split-second, she made her decision.

Very deliberately not looking over her shoulder, Amber walked to the bag and looked inside it. On top there was a new but ordinary-looking blouse, folded and still sporting a dangling price tag. She dug deeper. More clothes. Then her fingers closed around something cold and hard and slick, and she pulled it out into the light.

Another collar. It was hanging open, ingeniously hinged in the back. The symbol in the front was separated in two, the ring and the disk on either side, waiting to come together. They were still spinning, and the words flashed.

PUT IT ON

PUT IT ON

Even through the gloves, her skin tried to squirm away from the touch of the metal.

She lifted the thing to her neck.

Somehow, she didn’t throw up.

She clicked it shut.

The words, the voices were inside her head nowq, carrying her along, washing everything else away in a tide of spinning light, spinning bliss, spinning...

everything except one hard tight knot lurking down in the darkness. Waiting

Waiting for what?

Just waiting. Part of her was always waiting. Cold violet-tinged eyes glistening from the back of a dark cave shhh

The collar wasn’t spinning, she could feel it now. It was pulsing. The flashing words scorched their way so very deep, bright and blinding.

AT ATTENTION

Her head tilted back to the heavens, her eyes sliding farther back into her skull then was natural. She could feel the strain, at the corner of her attention, tiny muscles groaning as the twining twisting light tugged. Tugged, not forced. It was like being stuck on iron rails, with something applying just a little bit of push from behind, sliding her along. Her arms that had been at her neck were floating down, being pushed, pulled, gently, parts of her wanted to stop them, but they were busy trying to stop her eyes from slipping farther back. Her arms slid along the rails into position, just like her friend. Her legs in that same position, her mouth forming a lewd little oval. She hadn’t noticed her friends mouth like that, but she could see it in her mind. She knew what at attention was. Arms angled. Legs together. Head tilted back. Mouth just right. Body tight. Tight and

simple

That was most important.

TIGHT AND SIMPLE

The light continued to pull. Bliss that tugged. It didn’t force. It didn’t have to. It just was. She couldn’t fight something that simply was.

AT ATTENTION

A hum in her head, as her body lined up tight and simple. The tight pinch of her boots, the twinge in her back at the awkward position all lost in the struggle. Her eyes slid a millimeter more back, the strain at the edge of her vision was everything.

have to make it look good.

She had to what? Look good for them? She didn’t even know who..

AT ATTENTION

TIGHT AND SIMPLE

It was too much, the spinning hum, she hated it, but her eyes clicked into place. The light no longer pushed, it just held. Held her right ware she was supposed to be.

TIGHT AND SIMPLE.

Flashed through her mind. She wanted to hate it.

it waited curled. Anger. It was cold fury.

She couldn’t... she couldn’t hate something that was so.. her body wanted to shudder at the feeling, but that would require something other then tight and simple. She couldn’t do that. Ever.

“Do you understand now? Do you? Won’t it be wonderful? We can both go as slave girls. Go forever. Blessed to stand side by side.“ It was a voice. Amber didn’t know where it was coming from. It had nothing in it. It was just a voice speaking, from a husk. Patti. Someone had taken her friend, hollowed her out. Now she spoke. Not for her own benefit, not for Amber’s benefit. Her mouth speaking lines from some melodrama, a sick little play with an audience of... One of the shapes in the doorway? That made her so nervous she-

TIGHT AND SIMPLE

Didn’t move. She was still worried though, so worried, so she-

TIGHT AND SIMPLE

Didn’t move. She wanted just a quick glance, at the door, if her eyes weren’t rolled so far back in her head she-

TIGHT AND SIMPLE

Didn’t move. She didn’t move.

She felt the large shape behind her nod. As if pleased. Tension from the room dissipating. The dangerous part was passed.

a soft growl came from so very deep

Her finger twitched.

Her trigger finger.

TIGHT AND SIMPLE

It locked itself in place.

The second shape. Smaller. She couldn’t see, her eyes were to far back, but again she felt it. Angels carved from ivory.. A laugh that was the last keys on the piano. High and aggravating. The kind of laugh that would just find this all so funny.

She felt it move, around her, between them. A signal passed, the larger shape, square, bricklike, thick, strong, impossibly tall, it nodded again, and it started to.. receed.

Leaving the doorway empty.

the eyes in the dark glittered

Her trigger finger slowly curled..

TIGHT AND SIMPLE

There were other words flashing, she couldn’t see them, they were bypassing her eyes, digging in. Making new places inside her. Taking old places away. Spiffing it up and shinning it down. The only words she could see were..

TIGHT AND SIMPLE

She was. She was. It made what was in front of her laugh again. A child relentlessly banging away the shallow end of that piano. “Are we ready girls?” The voice wasn’t any better than the laugh. It was worse. As if somehow the child had managed to find a way to eviscerate a violin while continuing to slam on the keys. It was a voice she should hate.

Each sound would have made her moan and blush if she could move. She’d be covered in cold sweat if she could do anything other then..

it hissed threateningly

She heard Patti moan. She didn’t know why, or how. They were both so.. a finger touched the collar around her neck. The words flashed faster, the light dug deeper. She moaned. It was the sound her mouth had slid into that shape for. It was the light pouring out of her.

Her trigger finger curled again, straightened. “It will be so much fun won’t it? Yes so much fun. We’ll visit all your others-” The owner of the finger turned its head just enough, looking back at Patti.

The eyes flashed

“-and they will be able to join in..”

Amber’s eyes rolled forward, twisting to the side. Nothing had ever hurt so bad. Grinding, felt like sparks against metal, sand in the gears, but she saw. Still pixilated, tainted pink. But she saw. She saw that the hallway was empty, she had been right. The larger one was gone.

TIGHT AND SIMPLE.

She looked forward. Pain shot through her eyes, the bliss screeched. The words flashed faster and faster. She could HEAR what was around her neck humming.

Tightening.

TIGHT AND SIMPLE

Ivory angels. Ivory angles. Not that the woman in front of her was pale. Just polished. everything about her felt so smooth, slender. Even all the millions of overlapping patches, stitched into place with vicious iron threads. Long strands pulled back and wound as tight as cable. Woman.. woman was the best word to describe what it was, but it wasn’t right. Not right at all. There was confusion in the holes of its eyes. Blue and deep and shallow. Looking at Amber.

TIGHT AND SIMPLE

it didn’t care. It uncoiled and struck.

Her hand pulled the silly toy gun out of its holster, that trigger finger flickering into place. Those blue holes widened. Surprise? Fear? Or maybe...

TIGHT AND SIMPLE

Her trigger finger twitched. The plastic ray-gun whizzed louder and louder, the flash of lightning, striking home, filling the entire room. Those blue holes opened wider. There was something like a screech, a twang. Another twang. It collapsed at Amber’s feet a heap of broken ivory images

TIGHT AND SIMPLE

held loosely together with iron thread.

it wheezed. Hissing again, twisting and striking once more.

Amber’s free hand shot out, snakelike, grasping the collar around Patti’s neck. They both still moaned, moaned in perfect unison. It didn’t take much force. It didn’t have to be strong, in some ways it couldn’t be broken..

It broke off her friend’s neck and fell away.

TIGHT AND SIMPLE

it collapsed. Eyes fading

Something cheap and plastic slipped from her fingers, and her eyes slammed back again, harder this time. The light wasn’t pushing gently anymore, now it WAS forcing, she felt something snap inside herself. Or maybe it was just the silly gun breaking on the floor. Next to her tall shiny high-heeled boots.

Her arms angled back again. Her thighs clenched together. Her head tilted once more to the ceiling. Loyal Space Patrolwoman awaiting orders.

She was tight and simple for a very long time.

Another snap, inside and outside. Something new clattering on the floor. Everything got very dark.. “..amber?” It sounded afraid. There was a twinge in her back from standing like that for so long. “amber.. please..”

Her neck was cold and naked. She was shaking. Or someone was shaking her. “Amber.. I’m sorry I couldn’t.. It...twisting in so many directions pulling me and.. and It hurt. But only.. then it didn’t hurt but it was still twisting and all I had to do was.. was.. nothing and it would do everything and..” sobs against her. Pressure on her shoulder, desperate arms around her. She felt her hand reach up and touch the back of a tight ponytail in comfort. Everything was still so dark though..

Ah. She was wearing a helmet, and it had slipped down some. She fixed it, adjusted the strap. Focus returned. A close-up view, pixilated pink, of her sobbing friend. She felt light headed. “Amber I.. it was like burning sand, swallowing me and it tightened any time I tried to move and..” Amber patted her friend softly, not sure what else to do. For a while it was enough.

Eventually Patti looked up, Amber couldn’t tell, but her eyes were probably bloodshot. She was still warring that strange hoboesque outfit.

“It’s okay..ish.” Amber shrugged softly. She really had no idea if it was, but it was the sort of thing you said. Wasn’t it? She really had no idea what had happened. It sounded right though.

Patti sniffled. Which was new. Patti wasn’t the kind of girl who sniffled. Despite her best efforts, Amber occasionally was. Maybe she would later after the shock had worn off. “I’m so sorry, I found it inside that old cabinet I bought.. and I.. I had to put it on, and then they were there too, inside the cabinet! They were so.. wrong. I wanted to scream but.. but.. she.. what is she?”

Who is what is huh?

Amber looked down, and remembered. Something was still crumpled on the floor beside Patti’s coat, ivory glistening smooth. Might have been breathing or not. Hard to tell. She toed it gently, sending it shifting it all into a new position. The two collars were on the ground, they were still dazzling and-

BEND DOWN

PICK IT UP

PUT-

“Don’t look down all right?” Amber glanced back up, holding Patti close again. Patti just made a noise, half gasp half shriek. She was focused on the doorway.

On the thing filling the doorway

Large.

Square.

Dark.

Strong.

It raised something, moving with a boulder’s massive inevitability, but attached, fist like, to the end of an endless arm.

deep inside, it growled one last time, it was spent there was nothing left. It was used up but that was what it was for fading eyes in the dark

Amber pushed Patti away and reached for the plastic toy on the ground. It seemed almost to jump into her hand. Her eyes narrowed. Blue and dangerous. There was a dial on the side of the gun, and with her thumb she pushed it to the second setting.

click

The fist hesitated. Then, even more slowly, other one came up. The sign of holding fire. She watched it, but nodded, taking a step back, keeping the gun pointed at it.

It didn’t come in, it was (suddenly?) too big to fit though the doorway, but it reached out with one of those fists, spread the fingers and made a pulling motion, gravity given shape. The crumpled thing, the collars, the coat, they all jerked on the floor, then they lined up and slid silently along, and they were out in the hallway. The fist scooped them all up in a single motion, stowed them away inside itself, and then it was gone.

The door slammed shut. The sound of thunder.

Patti stood shaking like a leaf. “I.. what was..”

Amber twirled the ray gun before slapping it neatly back into its holster. “I don’t know.” Her legs were spread slightly, hands finding their way to her hips. For some reason she felt like laughing defiantly. She contented herself with curving one corner of her mouth.

Patti continued to shake. Her arms were wrapped around herself, under her chest. Lifting parts of her gently. Amber was subtly jealous for the 5023rd time in their friendship. “You were amazing.. I.. thanks.. why am I wearing this?” Amber finally left off looking at the door to glance at her friend, who was tugging at her odd costume. “Wasn’t I going to go as a cowgirl?” Patti spoke in an oddly dazed voice, for a moment that blank look returning to her face. “Wasn’t I.. must have changed my mind..” Amber watched, fascinated, as her friend continued to mutter to herself, shift, wipe her eyes. It was as if the last hour or so was just fading away. Washed clean. There was nothing out of place in the room, except her friend’s outfit and a paper sack of clothes sitting on the sofa. It wasn’t THAT odd though.. it was all gone. She knew..

“Actually, I look pretty damn good in this thing!”

She knew she could forget.

It would be so easy.

“Except for this stupid hairdo! What the hell was I thinking!”

It was already starting. There at the edges.

A warm haze. Things like that just didn’t happen.

Slave girl outfit. Kinky joke from Patti’s idiot boyfriend.

They’d just got to talking, lost track of time, while Patti fluffed out her hair.

Collars and lights and toy guns saving the world didn’t happen.

So of course it hadn’t happened. Had it?

Of course not.

“Oh.. wow.. look at the time! We’re late!” Patti exclaimed, worrying about that for possibly the first time in her life.

“Right.” Amber rolled her eyes. “Just gotta do a couple of things.” She took a step towards the bedroom, almost slipping as her ankle rolled. Gah! She’d really have to get used to these heels.

After Amber stuffed a few socks into her uniform’s chest, and loaned Patti some sneakers (a good friend, but damn could she be a ditz..) they were on their way. Out of the building and down the sidewalk and headed to a costume party ware people pretended to be so many different things.

Nothing real.

There was a car idling by the curb. Patti flopped past it without a glance, but Amber lingered. Some sort of limo, long and silvery, with a collection of black mirrored windows and a strange assortment of knobby antennas poking up in back. Had she seen that car before somewhere? Somewhere recently? Outside... some shop?

The nearest window loomed particularly large. Not exactly menacing, but like the night sky as seen from the desert. Black and enormous, yes, but filled with infinite stars and even more infinite possibility and promise. A thousand Galactic Patrol ships blasting bravely through the void..

“No. Not yet.” Amber belatedly realized that she was the one talking. She tapped the butt of her gun thoughtfully with her fingers. “But maybe next time..”

Next time?

She shrugged and turned away and set off after Patti, gaining confidence with every stride. The car pulled away from the curb and disappeared into the city’s traffic.

She never did return the costume.