Althea stuck to the shear face using piton-like claws extended from her hand. Four of the six kids climbed down her back and wrapped their arms around her legs. She had reconfigured her legs to provide a kind of seat for the children, like a playground swing or hobby horse. As each one made the descent, she used her left arm to guide and control their movements, keeping them on her back and in her grip as much as possible as they climbed.

  She spoke a soft prayer of thanks to Boris for his gift as the last of the four kids settled onto her split and modified legs. Joseph and Betty, Althea’s sergeants waited on the top of the rise as Althea paused to make sure the other kids were secure. Small gantries slipped out from her legs around the sides of their bodies, pulling them closer to her and keeping them from falling should they let go.

  “I need you two to climb down one at a time. Joseph, you go first, okay?”

  Pontikos stood in Althea’s viewer, leaving lines and curves indicating where and how Althea should extend a foothold or handhold for the kids. She felt her legs lengthen as Joseph settled into position on Althea’s left flank.

  “Okay, Joseph. I need you to help Betty.”

  Betty nodded and leaned over Althea as she looked down the side of the building. She shook her head and backed away from the side of the cliff.

  “Betty honey, I need you to come here, please sweetie? I can’t reach you there.”

  Rather than calmly nod and advance, Betty retreated even further from Althea dangerous perch. If not for the explosions and general destruction raining down on the city beyond them, Althea would have joined Betty. But with five children hanging from her cybernetic body, Althea did not have the patience to wait,

  “Betty!”

  A tap on her shoulder interrupted her angry shout. Joseph poked Althea until she looked at him. He nodded and said,

  “Come on Bee. We gotta do this and you know you can. Otherwise you’re leaving the rest of us hanging here.”

  Betty started to shake her head, but Althea added a soft, “Please?” to Joseph’s request, which muted the girl’s fear. She nodded and slowly approached the end of the shelf, stepping over Althea’s spiked anchor point.

  She put her foot down on Althea’s shoulder, who felt it wobble. Maintaining her own balance along with balancing five other humans was hard enough. But maintaining it while someone climbed down her back proved hard enough without the tremors rocking through the soil.

  And yet Betty managed to move one foot down onto a second platform that rose out of Althea’s back.

  Then she slipped.

  All of Althea’s world condensed into a series of microseconds. Because of the complex neural tissue suffusing her body, she felt Betty’s foot lose traction on her back. She felt the girls’s knee bang into one of the upper platforms as she scrabbled against the loose soil over Althea’s head, desperately trying to slow herself.

  If not for her layers of failsafes, Althea would have lost Betty.

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  But her left arm counter-rotated against the shoulder socket and elongated as it snaked around Betty, crumpling her clothes into Althea’s hand. The girl stopped falling as the other kids screamed, minus Joseph, who had reached out to grab Betty, making his own seat incredibly dangerous.

  “Guys! Guys!” No one seemed to respond to Althea, “Shut it!”

  Her voice rose over the shouting, and seemed to cow the children long enough for Althea to speak.

  “Joseph, please grab my waist or another handhold. I have Betty. Betty, please stop moving around. I am going to pull you to my side.”

  As soon as Althea spoke, the anchor over her head slipped, spilling stone and rock as it did.

  Rather than try to calm anyone’s renewed screams, Althea grabbed Betty and pulled her into Althea’s side using her left arm. Parts of Althea’s ribcage and spinal apparatus extended from her body and clutched Betty to her as her right hand fell from the hole on the cliff face.

  Days, even weeks spent defending herself, Althea had never moved so fast in so short a time. First to save Betty from falling and second to keep her whole posse of children from dropping with her. Small stones and dust poured off of the ground as Althea stuck both of her arms into the dirt in an attempt to halt her progression. The first two anchors slipped from the rock and Althea prepared herself for a long fall and death.

  Still, she scrabbled and scratched against the cliffs until her hands found purchase in a nearly flat section of rock. Slipping between natural cracks in the stone, her hands caught firm and her descent halted.

  Screaming continued even once they stopped falling. A brief check of her own body confirmed six other terrified weights suspended from Althea’s body. The knight within her chest shouted exhortations to the sky, sounding at first like the scared yelling from the kids.

  But soon they too fell silent before Althea’s desperate laughter.

  Joseph poked her again and said,

  “I don’t like hanging here, can we move?”

  Althea nodded, stifling her joy at living and slowly crawled down the mountain, accessing a mountain climbing protocol as she did.

  Hanging from beneath the curved cliff made Althea feel insignificant and strangely alone. Even with six children draped from her body, she marveled at the sight below. Hundreds of feet down, she could see a devastated and ruined factory complex among the multicolored swathes of the wastes.

  Admiring the view could come later. Althea already had Pontikos making a full sense recording of the episode, so if she really wanted to, she could relive the experience of hanging over a deathdrop from her fingers every day for the next fifty years. But the kids aboard would remain imperiled until she moved.

  “Your body changed, Ms Thompson.”

  Betty’s voice was quiet in her ear. Althea’s first impulse was to shush the girl. But she analyzed her voice and tensions therein. More than a correction or warning, Betty needed someone to calm her and reassure her everything would be fine.

  “It did. Erie my friend helped me. And now I can do this stuff for you guys.”

  “It’s pretty neat. When can I have one of these?’

  None of these kids possessed a Persona implant. And their prospects for receiving one sometime in the future were pretty thin.

  “I am not sure, it’s kind of an adult thing.”

  “Did it hurt?”

  Althea grinned and moved forward a single step. Joseph interrupted,

  “Betty, stop. She doesn’t need you distracting her. Especially right now.”

  Althea had to remind herself how young and how old these kids were all the time. He had brought up her exact concerns, even though she dismissed them.

  Althea said,

  “It’s alright. I can do both because of my implant. And no, it did not physically hurt.”

  “Did it hurt in another way?”

  The way the kids seemed to zero in on a small part of her words kept Althea on her toes.

  “Not exactly. Maybe in an adult way.”

  Yes, it’s a cop out. Sorry kids.

  Betty seemed satisfied with that answer, so she asked a new question,

  “What do we do after we get to the ground?”

  “I am not sure yet, sweetie. I hope to meet up with Erie and anyone else from the shelf.”

  “Why did the bad people attack us?”

  Althea swallowed and paused a moment, swinging in the air as she did. The lie felt bitter and sick on her tongue,

  “I don’t know sweetie.”