The morning sky in Ilwich was always a thing of beauty: one of the few upsides, as far as Iris was concerned, to living in this particular corner of New Gloucester.

Wherever you are, you find something to love about it. Ilwich wasn't a particularly beautiful suburb, with its seemingly-infinite arrays of uniform housing, each house with its own identical garden, driveway and garage, each family with their own identical car. Nor was it a particularly exciting place, the nearest decent nightlife being two train journeys away, and not even a local pub to compensate. But the mornings, the clear skies bringing golden rays streaming in from the east along with the scents and sounds of sea life from the North Sea, made living there almost worth it. Iris breathed it all in as she stood on the doorstep of her home.

Somewhere off in the distance, there was a clash of metal, the screaming of machine-against-monster. Iris put her earphones in, and let pop music drown it out.

She ran. It was the morning, after all, and you've got to work up a sweat before breakfast. The heart rate monitor on her wrist doubled as a GPS, but she didn't look at it; she didn't need to. She listened to her body instead: the rhythm of her heart, the warmth of her muscles, the poetry of motion, that moment when the burning in your thighs starts to drown out the music in your ears. You don't run to collect data. You run to shake the cobwebs off. You run to remind yourself that you're alive.

Iris ran to the end of the block, took a left, and kept running, weaving in and amongst the houses of her suburb. There was no planned route to her run. If you'd asked her where she was going, she'd say she was trying to get lost.

But you're never lost for long in a place like Ilwich.

Iris' run finished a little bit past 8:00, returning home bathed in sweat and buzzing with endorphins, the post-exercise glow cradling her body. She took off her shoes and left them by the front door — not that there was any danger of tracking mud — and went into the kitchen.

"Dad!" she called. "You up yet?"

The house was a mess. The kitchen was no exception. The counter around the toaster was coated in a layer of crumbs and dust. Plates were stacked high, in various states of dirtiness, next to the sink, and the linoleum faux-tiled floor wore a thin layer of grime. Probably best not to think about what might be lurking in the crevices.

The only place in the kitchen that was well and truly clean was the cooker, the electric hobs kept spotless and shining to match the knobs that controlled them. Iris made sure of that. You can't live where you can't eat, and you can't eat where you can't cook.

The cooker didn't matter right now, though. Not compared to the coffee machine. Iris'd set it to brew on a timer before going out. There's nothing quite like the rich, earthy smell of coffee in the morning; the smell welcomed her into the kitchen like an old friend.

Iris opened the cupboard above the coffee machine and grabbed the jar of sugar. After selecting her favourite mug from those on offer — a pink one with a picture of a cat on it — she proceeded to fill it two-thirds of the way with coffee, about half of the remaining space left free for milk and sugar. She didn't bother measuring either. Just like running, coffee's an art more than a science.

"Breakfast yet?" came a voice from the hallway. Dad was finally awake; he stepped into the kitchen, his dark, shaggy hair and unshaven features underlining his wordlessness. No point in expecting good conversation right now.

He was, at least, wearing pyjamas under his dressing gown. They'd had that talk before.

"Good morning to you too," Iris replied, brightly. She paused to inhale a gulp of coffee. "Sleep well?"

Dad grunted, pouring himself a cup. "How come you've always got energy in the mornings?" he asked.

Iris shrugged and took another gulp of coffee. Her dad's morning habits were as alien to her as hers were to him. How could you ever not have energy in the morning?

"Bacon and eggs?" she offered. "The stuff we got from the new fab yesterday is meant to be as good as the real thing."

He wrinkled his nose. "Doubt it. But yeah." With that bit of gloom, he left the kitchen.

With the room once more to herself, Iris took the music player off her neck and tapped it twice on the counter. The kitchen speakers took the hint and started playing the same music. Iris had been following Annabella since her debut a year or so ago, and this was her latest; not exactly lyrically intricate, but who listens to pop for the lyrics? Musically it was an absolute banger: definitely one to keep on the workout playlist.

Cooking's an art just like coffee, but this one's more like dancing: best done to music. Iris grabbed the nearest and cleanest frying pan (not that there were many candidates) and threw a knob of butter in it, placing it on the hob to warm up while she grabbed the bacon and eggs from the fridge. Authentic or not, the sizzle they made when they hit the pan sounded pretty great. Not to mention the blissful smells of frying fat and protein. A bit of effort goes a long way when it comes to breakfast.

She made sure to cook the bacon thoroughly: Dad liked it crispy, for some strange reason, and she wasn't about to waste time cooking their portions separately. When she was done, she stopped the music, served up, and took the plates through to the living room where her dad was sat zombieing at the morning news. He accepted his plate with a grunt, and they ate together on the sofa in silence, with only the bulletins as soundtrack.

"Talks with President of the Greater Netherlands Pieter van Steen over trade routes in the North Sea have broken down. This latest incident has once again left many asking: can the United Kingdom still rely on its long-term allies on the continent?"

"Another Aberrant attack in Churchill has caused significant devastation to local businesses. With attacks on the rise, critics say the government isn't doing enough to protect families and entrepreneurs."

"The Confed—"

Iris waved, and the television muted. She'd put this off for long enough. Best to get it over with.

"I was watching that," her dad grumbled mildly. He stood up, leaving his plate on the coffee table in the centre of the room, and started to leave.

"Wait," Iris said. She wasn't about to lose the moment now. "It's your turn to do the washing up."

Dad cast an eye on the plates on the table, and then turned to Iris. "…right. I'll do it later, okay?"

It's just like him to put it off. Again.

"You said that yesterday, but—"

"I've got things to do," he cut in. "You've got to remind me later, okay?"

"I can't keep reminding you every ti—"

But before she could finish her thought, the power went out, and sirens filled the air. Ilwich was under attack.

Earlier:

"What about this one… Felicia Waters, Candidate Thirty-Seven?"

Colonel Jack Adler, a man in his late forties with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair and rounded glasses, spoke with a weary tone lurking just below the surface of his words. His colleague, Doctor Anna Klein, knew the feeling: they'd been at this for almost an hour, in the glass-walled meeting room semi-affectionately termed the "fishbowl" down in the bowels of the base, and she was starting to need a break.

"Too old," Klein sighed, pushing the file in question away into the rapidly-expanding pile to her right. "And those sync scores are not good." That was something of an understatement. Were there no decent candidates to be had?

The colonel straightened in his seat, well-toned muscles just barely making themselves known under the layers of his uniform. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he opened the next file.

"Candidate… Thirty Eight," he read. "Diana MacIntyre."

Klein scanned the file quickly before delivering her assessment. "Better," she allowed, "but I'd be happier with scores in the high fifties."

She went to push the file away to join its brethren, but Colonel Adler put his hand on it.

"Anna," he said, gently but firmly. "I know you're… precious, about the project, but we have to make compromises somewhere. And I'd be much happier if Seventeen were not our only active unit."

Klein sighed. He was right, of course. She didn't like it when he was right.

"I need breakfast," she said, curtly. "And a cigarette. We can finish this later."

Adler nodded. "Of course. Later."

The base canteen was a few floors above the fishbowl, just tantalisingly close enough to natural light that its absence was truly painful. It was significantly bigger than it needed to be, boasting tables to seat almost a hundred soldiers eating hotplate-warmed stodge served lovingly by the spoonful by tired (and presumably underpaid) cafeteria workers. The ceiling vaulted above, its dingy corners containing god-knows-how-many cobwebs, and the floor was a faux-wood not unlike the floor of a school gymnasium. There was a vending machine in the corner, but it was usually broken, perhaps unsurprisingly given how few repairmen there were likely to be in New Gloucester with the necessary security clearance.

Most people used the barracks kitchenettes. Anna Klein didn't have the energy; she bundled herself into the canteen with a pile of reports under her arm, grabbed the nearest plastic tray to hand and populated it with whatever random meal looked least offensive to her palate. Today, that meal consisted of two rashers of leathery faux-bacon, a gloopy bowl of snot masquerading as oatmeal, and a glass of orange juice. But it was at least warm, and reasonably filling, so she had no reason to complain.

It wasn't noisy in the hall, but nor was it completely quiet. Klein ate at a measured pace, multitasking with her reports: a spoonful of porridge, then a paragraph about maintenance on the Thanatos units; a gulp of juice, then a chart of P-matrix readings; a bite of bacon, then the physical measurements of a candidate pilot. She preferred to eat alone, so she could work through her mealtimes on full input, saving any observations or decisions for once she'd had a chance to digest.

About halfway through her meal, a mug of tea appeared in her peripheral vision. It was a welcome sight; less welcome, however, was the hand that provided it.

"Lieutenant Searl," she observed. "I'm afraid I'm a bit busy right now."

Lieutenant Searl — leff-tenant, as he would pronounce it, though that archaism had long been eroded away everywhere outside of the military — was a young man, perhaps in his early twenties, with fair hair, blue eyes and lightly tanned skin, almost a caricature of Aryan perfection. His uniform was well-kept and carefully pressed, and his shoes were almost gleaming. He stood next to the table with a smile on his face and a mug of coffee in his other hand.

"Won't be a moment," he promised. Searl had a funny idea of what a moment was. "I was just hoping to bend your ear a little about the modifications to—"

"Later," Klein said firmly, taking another bite of bacon. She kept her eyes on her work, hoping that he might take the hint.

"See, the thing is," he continued, "I'm a bit worried about these sync numbers. I had Sergeant Morris down in the Engineering department take a look at—"

Klein sighed, her frustration audible in her breath, and fixed the Lieutenant with a firm gaze.

"I'm sure," she said, in measured tones, "that it can wait until I'm done eating." She kept her eyes on him for several seconds, watching him wilt under her scrutiny.

"…right," he conceded. "I'll come by your office later, then."

Klein returned her eyes to her work. "You do that."

At that, the Lieutenant gave up and left.

It didn't take long for Klein to finish the last dregs of her meal and, once she'd disposed of the remnants and put her tray on the racks, she soon started her way down the halls to the so-called "nerve centre" of the base. It wasn't a long walk — more time was probably spent operating the three somewhat finicky security doors than actually in transit — but Klein took it at a brisk pace nonetheless, walking with a somewhat intimidating purpose with her reports once again tucked under her arm. Her phone buzzed, but she paid little attention to it; anyone who really needed her would be able to find her easily.

The nerve centre itself was an expansive room with the rather unassuming designation "Room B70". There were maybe a dozen computer terminals there, staffed by assorted military and civilian personnel, and room for a half-dozen hot-deskers besides. The walls were lined with screens displaying all sorts of statistics, maps and reports in intense and slightly nauseating colour schemes.

The front of the room was given to a large panel window, behind which were visible the purpose of their entire operation: the Thanatos units, bipedal heavy weapons each designed for a single pilot. A fully-equipped Thanatos unit was a thing of terrifying beauty, twenty five feet tall, human, robotic and alien in equal measure. Each unit was unique, with its own colour scheme, weapon loadout and pilot. The closest, and most complete, was Seventeen's, a three-armed beast (one on the right and two on the left) painted in a deep chrome-indigo and armed with a phase rifle and a set of plasma knives.

Doctor Klein hadn't been the original designer of Thanatos — that honour went to her predecessor — but still, she felt a certain degree of pride at the sight. She took a seat in the hot-desking area, though she had no laptop with her, and turned back to her papers. Her stomach gurgled mildly in protest at her choice of breakfast, but she ignored it.

She didn't get much chance to continue her work before she was once again interrupted.

One of the sensors had registered something, sending alarms blaring throughout the base and reverberating in Klein's skull. The screens on the walls filled with data. The nerve centre was suddenly full of bustle and chatter, as a whole team of soldiers and civilians tried to make sense of the situation.

"Anomaly detected!" announced a military man near the front of the room, though at this point that was obvious. Klein didn't know his name, but from his uniform, presumed he was a Private.

She sighed, pushed her papers to the side, and pinched the bridge of her nose in a vain attempt to stave off a headache. It was too soon after the last one, and too early in the day, for her to be happy about this.

"Analysis!" she called out. "Do we have a location?"

The Private typed furiously on his keyboard. "Tracking… It's in the Eastern sector, at least…"

"Variance is high, almost six point five," someone added. "Definitely a break. Could be an Aberrant…"

Klein stood up. "Confirm it! I don't want to send Seventeen out on a wild goose chase."

"Ilwich," the Private announced, calmly but clearly. "It's in Ilwich."

"Variance has reached eight, uh, eight point two, eight point five…"

Klein nodded, rubbing traces of sweat from her forehead.

"Confirmed, then!" she announced. "Prepare Seventeen for launch."

Monstrous arms crashed through the walls of Iris' living room, knocking her prone and scattering familial bric-a-brac across the floor. The arms, pink flesh, but somehow… gloopy, like they were made out of melting plastic, made her feel sick to look at as they scrabbled around the living room floor; Iris did her best not to look, but the image felt somehow burned into her retinas. She screamed.

She dove for the coffee table; flimsy, but it had to be better than nothing. She glanced over at her Dad. God, if anything happened to him, she wouldn't know what to do. He was staggered, but somehow, still standing.

He reached for a heavy vase—

"Dad, no!" Iris cried. "Just run!"

The arms widened the hole they'd made, revealing more of the monstrosity that bore them. It was a horrific sight, a grotesque, distorted picture of a human with four sagging breasts, two hulking arms and two smaller, atrophied limbs lower down the thorax, towering up God-knows-how-far above the wreckage of the house, flesh shimmering and shifting into different variations, all of them wrong. Its face was blank, no features visible but the faint slobber tracing out the corners of a mouth. The legs were like tree trunks, knobbly and twisted, and the feet were flat and had far too many toes.

The genitals of the beast were covered by a shred of cloth. Iris didn't want to know what it might be concealing. Anything that looked that ugly from the waist up had to be hiding something even worse down there.

Iris pushed herself away from the monster and out from under the table, grunting with what air was left in her lungs. She staggered to her feet: got to get ready to run, got to get away—

Her Dad swung his arm, smashing the vase he was wielding pointlessly against the creature's leg. It didn't do much beyond pissing it off. What was he even doing?!

The creature pushed her Dad aside, and he fell onto his back. A horrible, gurgling roar erupted from its face, revealing the inside of its mouth: a hungry, vertiginous gullet, dripping with molten flesh and spit. It was possibly the most disgusting thing Iris had ever seen.

No. Can't think about that right now. Got to move. Got. To. Move!

Taking advantage of her Dad's distraction, Iris dashed past the monster, out of the living room (what was left of it) and up the stairs. Behind her, she heard him scream. She felt herself go pale, legs moving beneath her on autopilot. This couldn't be happening it just—

The stairs collapsed beneath her.

Iris blacked out the fall itself. It was like one moment she was on the stairs, and the next, she was prone, bruised, bleeding, panting, in a heap of bricks and wood. The monster was looming above her, bearing its six, needle-like teeth and breathing a thick, unpleasant miasma over her body. It looked smaller, but somehow even more terrifying, like it had collected all of its body into one place to threaten her in particular. It raised its arms to strike, and Iris closed her eyes and prayed.

The blow never came.

Iris heard the crash of its attack, but… nothing. No pain, no impact, no movement. All she knew was that somehow, she wasn't dead.

How was she still alive? She was afraid to open her eyes and find out, as if the knowledge itself might somehow be more frightening than the monster that was still there, still just inches from her helpless body, waiting for some reason. At this point, crumpled in a heap in the rubble of her home, Iris was just about ready to die. So why hadn't she?

Gunfire boomed around her, shocking her out of stupor. A piercing shrill sound assaulted Iris' ears as the monster screamed again. She forced her eyes open and saw it, red bursts rippling across its torso, waves of flesh reverberating through its awful form, ugly ruptures made as bolts of white-hot plasma tore through its skin. It fell down, away from her, and stopped moving.

Its tiny secondary arms kept twitching for a few seconds more.

Iris felt sick. She released the breath she hadn't realised she was holding, and fainted.

Doctor Klein arrived at the wreckage in a military van, accompanied by Lieutenant Searl and a few unarmed grunts. It was a mess: the Aberrant had destroyed at least a half-dozen houses, leaving a trail of bodies in its wake. Fortunately, there'd been more injuries than deaths, but that would be small comfort to the families of the deceased.

Of course, on the upside, this would be a good incident to point to the next time the project's funding came into question.

Klein wasn't here to inspect the damage, though. Her interest was more focused. Pushing through a crowd of police, paramedics, local residents and the odd journalist, she made her way to the ambulance administering care to the most recent pair of survivors.

Iris Florence Platt was a girl of maybe 18 or 19, with short-cropped dark hair and dark eyes. She wore a torn, loose-fitting T-shirt, lycra shorts and an expression of deep distress. She looked like an interrogation was the last thing she needed. But somehow she was alive and well, despite a close encounter with the Aberrant, and that required investigation.

"Iris?" Klein said, handing over a cardboard cup of coffee. She'd made sure to bring some. "My name's Anna Klein, I work for the government. I was wondering if you'd be able to answer some questions?" Klein wasn't accustomed to being this gentle, but it seemed like the situation called for it.

Iris sipped at the coffee, suspiciously. "What kind of questions?"

Klein forced a kind smile. This wasn't her favourite part of the job, but she damn well knew how to do it. "The department I work for is responsible for monitoring Aberrant attacks. We spotted some anomalous data, and I was hoping you might be able to provide some context."

Iris sipped again, wrinkling her nose. "…sure." She glanced at the coffee cup. "Got any sugar?"

Klein grabbed a handful of sugar packets from her pocket and handed them over. She watched as Iris took the lid off the coffee cup and added each and every packet to the coffee, swirling the coffee gently in lieu of a stirrer.

"So, what'd you want to ask?"

"Well, can we start by going through what happened?"

Iris recounted her whole morning, from her morning run to breakfast to arguing with her Dad all the way to her narrow escape from the Aberrant. Klein took close notes — no detail too small — and for the most part just let her talk. Follow-up questions could come later.

"So you have no idea how you managed to escape unscathed?" Klein asked, once Iris was finished. It made no sense. At least, not the way Iris told it.

Iris shook her head. "No clue." She drank a big gulp of coffee. "I just… listen, is my dad okay?"

Klein glanced over the stretcher that bore Iris' father, James. It wasn't a pretty sight. "He'll probably need a while to recover," she said, grimacing. "I'm sorry."

Iris followed her gaze, and gasped. "Oh God."

No child should have to see that.

Klein thought for a moment. She wasn't going to get much more information here and now, but maybe…

"Listen, my department," Klein said gently, "our job is to stop this kind of thing from happening. But we need help to do that. You've already met one of our team."

Iris squinted. "The… gunfire? But…"

"You'd get on with her, I think," Klein said. Maybe it was true, maybe not, but it seemed like the right thing to say. "And I'd think you'd be good in her team."

"I'm not a soldier," Iris said. "I'm barely an adult."

Klein nodded. "I know. But I read your file on the way here, and you'd be a strong candidate. And, frankly, we could do with some strong candidates."

Iris looked pensive for a moment, but shook her head. "No. I need to take care of my dad." She took a final gulp, and handed back the empty cup. "Um. Thanks for the coffee, though."

Klein sighed. This was always going to be a hard sell, but she hadn't wanted to have to play it quite as hard as this. Still, she needed Iris. She needed to know.

She looked over at the senior Platt, and sighed. "Listen," she said, turning back to Iris. "You don't need to throw your life away caring for your father. Come on board with us, and we'll take care of him, pay for him to get the best medical care money can buy. And when you're done with us, you can go away to university, get a proper education." She looked Iris in the eye, searching for some sign of acquiescence. "Just think about it, okay?"

Iris nodded weakly, and looked over at her father. Klein turned to leave, but was stopped by Iris' meek voice.

"Okay," she said. "I'll give it a shot."

Klein smiled thinly. Everything had gone far better than she'd expected.

"Excellent."

To be continued…

Next time:

Iris meets her teammate, the mysterious Amanita! But can she get her head around how to pilot the deadly Thanatos unit before the next Aberrant attack? And just what makes a good Thanatos pilot, anyway?

Find out in the next exciting episode. Episode Two: Codes!