The train to the base was cold and empty, rattling along the rails to a rhythm of its own design. Iris stared out the window, though there wasn't much to be seen as she traversed the bowels of the city except for the odd junction-light or advertisement. She didn't like trains, much. Underground ones even less.

Her suitcase sat on the seat next to her. It wasn't hers, really. It'd been hastily purchased for her by some military dogsbody when she'd pointed out that she needed something to carry the few possessions she still had. It was ugly, and grey, and made hollow noises every time the motion of the train knocked it against something. Not that it mattered: the only possession of hers that really meant anything was the music player in her pocket. Her earphones were broken, leaving the music in her ears harsh and tinny, the lyrics impossible to make out. She listened to it anyway.

Still, Iris was glad to be free of the hotel. Military barracks weren't really her idea of a fun time, but the prospect of meeting someone her own age was exciting. Who was this "Amanita"? Would they get on? How did she get such a cool name?

And perhaps most importantly, why exactly had she agreed to do this?

The train reached its terminus suddenly, throwing Iris forward in her seat and knocking a few strands of dark hair into her face. She steadied herself, pulled the earphones from her ears and stopped the music. She'd arrived; the doors opened, and a man in a military uniform stepped in.

He was young — younger than Iris had expected — and handsome, with blonde hair and blue eyes. His uniform was a sort of olive green, fitting his frame well, and his black shoes shone a little in the artificial light of the train. Iris couldn't help but stare; he didn't fit her idea of a military man at all.

"Miss Platt?" he said. "Lieutenant Harry Searl. I'm here to escort you to the briefing room." He glanced at her suitcase. "I'll get one of the boys to take that to your quarters, shall I?"

Iris stood from her seat, lifting her suitcase out of its place and putting it on the floor of the carriage.

"Um… thanks." She wasn't sure what else to say. She followed him out of the carriage and handed the suitcase off to another waiting soldier.

"So, what's the plan?" she asked, nervously.

Harry smiled warmly at her, looking over his shoulder at her as he led her off the platform and down some stairs. Iris could hardly believe they were going deeper; the train station was deep enough already. Wouldn't they reach Australia sooner or later?

"Well, Colonel Adler wants to brief you, first," Harry told her. "He and Klein'll give you a general overview of the project, talk you through the basics. You'll meet Sev— er, Amanita, and then they'll probably want you to go through some basic training exercises." His smile turned to a smirk. "Got to say I'm a bit jealous. Always wanted to pilot one of those things, but… well, you'll get the full story from the Colonel."

Honestly, that raised far more questions than answers.

It wasn't a long walk to the briefing room, but it was an eye-opening one. Iris had never been anywhere with this many people. Military and civilians alike filled the corridors of the base, walking with purpose and resolve to wherever they had to be. The base, despite its location underground, was brightly lit, with clean hospital-white walls and electronic doors. If it hadn't been for the dust in the corners and the occasional broken light, Iris would've said it was like being on the set of a movie.

The briefing room was no less impressive, seating maybe fifty people in tiered, theatre-style seats, with a massive screen at the front. It was far too big for its occupants: there were only five, including Iris and Harry. The other three were Doctor Klein, a middle aged man in uniform who was presumably Colonel Adler, and a boy — no, a girl? — somewhere around Iris' age, with medium-length black hair and a light brown complexion, wearing a pastel green hoodie. She had a cardboard cup in her hands, and a pair of chopsticks.

The contents smelled suspiciously like instant ramen.

"Iris!" Adler declared affably. "Glad you're finally here. This is your colleague, Miss Amanita Gill. You'll have met Doctor Klein, of course."

Amanita waved weakly at Iris. She said nothing, and returned to eating, making the occasional quiet slurping noise.

"Er… hi!" Iris said to her. "My name's Iris. I guess we're going to be working together?"

Amanita only nodded in response. Clearly about as much of a morning person as Iris' dad. That was just her luck, really.

It wasn't even that early!

"You'll have plenty of time to get to know each other," the Colonel said. "First, we need to get this briefing through with."

Iris nodded, and took a seat next to Amanita. She studied the face of her new comrade, burning the features into the back of her brain. They were going to be friends, she decided, whether either of them liked it or not.

"Right," Adler said. "Shall we get started?" He pushed his glasses up his nose and cleared his throat.

The briefing was, well, brief. Over the course of about fifteen minutes, the Colonel explained what little was known about the Aberrants, the weaponry they'd developed for fighting them — Thanatos units, basically big robots people sit in and control — and a dull assortment of statistics and facts about the history of the project. Doctor Klein had stepped in briefly at one point to mention the "very specific type of pilot" needed to work the machines. Iris didn't get it. Shouldn't anyone be able to operate a big robot with guns? And if not, what made her so special?

"Girls," Amanita murmured, barely loud enough for Iris to hear. It was the first thing she'd said to her. "The pilots have to be girls. Can't be too old, either."

Her voice was a bit strained, like she wasn't quite used to speaking at that pitch. Maybe she wasn't.

Once the briefing was wrapped up, Doctor Klein led Iris to the hangar. It was a cavernous, vaulted room, spanning many floors' worth of space, with scaffolding and ladders everywhere. There was a faint, chemically sort of smell in the air, and the hum of generators. But the most obvious things in the room were the two, massive robots standing proudly against the rear wall.

Iris had to crane her neck to take in their full height. The unit on the left was a deep, gleaming indigo, with three arms and a whole raft of weapons on its back. The chrome was scratched up, especially around the torso, and pipes led from the walls into its back. The unit on the right, however, was a pristine pure white, with four arms, and currently unarmed. Both units were uncannily human-shaped, save for the extra arms and the completely blank, featureless faces. Iris would swear blind that they even had breasts.

Christ. Were they really expecting her to get in that?

Doctor Klein turned back to her, and smiled proudly. "Well. What do you think?"

Honestly, Iris didn't know what she thought. But she was starting to get the bigger picture of what she'd signed on for. She stared at the white robot, the statuesque four-armed goddess in front of her, realising belatedly that, going by its pristine state, that was the one she'd be driving. She imagined what it'd be like to sit in the cockpit — if it even really had one — and fight in it, a metal extension of her body, a well-oiled machine, a ferocious weapon. All the anxiety she had about her situation melted away into the fantasy.

"Wow," she said, breathlessly. "When do I get to use it?"

Klein smiled again, putting a hand on her hip. "Right now, if you're ready. We need to start your training as soon as possible, so you're up to speed and ready for deployment."

Iris grinned. "Awesome."

It took Iris only a handful of minutes to get changed into her "softsuit", as the civilian scientist who'd given it to her called it. It was a full-body item, including a hood, made of a thin, flexible plastic, matte white in colour. It wasn't hard to put on. In a lot of ways it was just like the lycra she wore for exercising, just… more concealing, and somehow warmer. It felt a bit like a full-body hug: comfortably constricting.

And it looked pretty good on her, too.

Once changed, Iris was led into a lift running up the rear of the hangar, which took her up to the base of the white robot's neck. It opened at the spine at the same time that the lift doors opened, revealing a strange, featureless, chamber, mostly rounded but tapered at the end. Was that where she was getting in? It didn't seem to have any controls.

"Iris?" Doctor Klein's voice came directly into her ear. Clearly there was some kind of speaker in the suit. "Can you hear me?"

"I can hear you," she replied. Her voice quivered slightly, and she realised she was a little nervous.

"Excellent. Get into the cockpit."

Iris nodded, realising belatedly that she didn't know if Doctor Klein could see her; presumably there were cameras somewhere, but she hadn't seen any. She stepped forward slowly, staring at her feet, until she reached the edge of the robot's interior. Taking a deep breath, she entered the cockpit.

The door closed loudly behind her, cutting out the light. Iris yelped.

"Sorry," Klein said. "Should've warned you about that. Are you okay?"

Reflexively, Iris nodded, before realising that even if there had been cameras outside, they wouldn't be able to see her inside. "I'm okay," she said. She was okay, wasn't she?

"We're going to start the sequence now," Klein told her. "It's going to feel… I don't know how to explain. Amanita?"

Amanita's voice came on. "Um," she said. "It's going to feel really weird."

"I can deal with weird," Iris replied, still a little nervous. But sitting there, within an egg inside a robot beneath the earth, she wasn't really sure how much weirder it could get.

"Okay," Klein said. "Sequence starting… now." The sound of buttons and switches was faintly audible over the line. "P-matrix in place."

In the dark of the cockpit, Iris felt herself cushioned and contained. The space between herself and the walls of the space felt somehow thick, like she was floating in some sort of fluid. She reached out to touch the wall, caressing it slowly. It was safe here. She was protected. She was exactly where she needed to be.

"Initiating S-induction. Flux rising…"

Gradually, Iris realised that she could no longer feel the wall of the egg. It was like the difference between herself and the space around her was gone. She couldn't feel her arms or her legs. It wasn't like they were numb, just that they… weren't there. Perhaps they never really were. Perhaps her whole body was an illusion, and she was finally getting to see the truth behind the curtain.

"Limit holding. Iris, how do you feel?"

She tried to open her mouth. She wasn't sure how; had that gone, too? Had she been completely unmade by the machine?

Would she never walk on solid earth again?

A faint voice. "Doctor, these figures…"

"I'm aware," the Doctor replied. "Iris, it's okay. This is normal. You don't need to speak: just think your response, and I'll hear it."

Amanita was right. It felt really weird.

"The Thanatos units work by direct mental interface. We've temporarily pulled you out of your body, and now we need to reintegrate you into the machine's. You're perfectly safe."

It didn't sound safe. It didn't feel safe.

"Right now, you're experiencing yourself as pure potential. Everything you could be, anything you could do, it's all accessible to you."

"It gets easier," Amanita added. "First time's the worst." It wasn't much comfort.

"We're going to start bringing your senses online," Klein said. "Sight comes first. Calm yourself, and look around. Tell me five things you can see."

Gradually, Iris found her sight. Out of the machine's eyes, she looked down on the hangar, like it was a box she'd been kept in. She felt… big. The scaffolding was like twigs before her, and the pipes more like thread. The ground beneath the robot's feet — her feet, it felt like — was featureless, and grey. The glass of the control room glistened in the harsh lighting of the room. It hadn't felt that harsh when she'd been Iris. Did machines see differently to people?

"That's perfect," Klein told her. "Now we're bringing tactile senses online. Tell me four things you can feel."

Iris moved the robots hands, feeling the smoothness of her four palms. She felt the coolness of the air in the hangar — she wouldn't have expected a robotic body to be able to feel that, but apparently a Thanatos unit could — and the hum of the generators. She could feel the weight of herself, her feet pressing into the ground. She felt strong, to be able to hold up all that.

"Excellent," Klein said. "You're doing wonderfully, Iris. Now, auditory senses. Tell me three things you can hear."

Now, the hum of the generators started to reach her ear, and as she listened, she could hear more and more. There was a man with a wristwatch in the control room, and she could hear it ticking. There was a mouse, or maybe a rat, scurrying about within the wall to her left. She could hear so much, so loudly and so clearly. It was incredible. It was beautiful. It was insane.

"Nearly there," Klein told her. Now she could hear her both inside and and outside, coming through the speakers of the hangar. "Olfaction's next. Can you tell me two things you can smell?"

The chemical odour of the hangar came first; through the robot's senses, it was sweet, almost sickly. It was vanilla, butter and caramel, kind of like the fudge Iris had once had on a trip to the Cambridge seaside. She could smell the people in the control room, too, a scent both familiar and alien. It frightened her, the strangeness of the scent. Was this really happening? What was she becoming?

"Keep calm," Klein said. "We're on the last step. We've linked up the Aberration sensory system to your sense of taste. We're going to spray a false chemical signature into the hangar now: tell me if you can taste it."

A moment passed. Suddenly, Iris was overcome with an intense sensation, like biting into a well-seasoned piece of meat. It was the most incredible, most delicious thing she'd ever tasted, far better than the fabbed food she'd had back home. If the machine had had a mouth, she was sure it'd be drooling. It was unfair. In the shadow of a taste like that, would she ever truly enjoy a meal again?

Iris stood, maybe ten stories tall or more, in the hangar, feeling the strongest she'd ever felt. It was intoxicating, how powerful she felt, how aware of her machinic muscles, how honed her senses were. She hadn't understood. She wasn't controlling the weapon, she'd been reborn. She was the weapon. She was Thanatos.

Awesome.

The speakers crackled. "Excellent, Iris!" Doctor Klein said. "All of your readings look great, better than we could've expected." She paused; Iris could hear the scratch of the Doctor's pen, frantically taking notes. "Are you ready to start your training? Amanita can suit up, and then we can get to sparring."

The sparring arena was some 20 kilometres into the North Sea, a huge platform built out of concrete and steel, with chunks of metal coming out of the ground here and there to serve as makeshift cover. If the Thanatos units had been human-sized, the platform would be only a dozen or so metres across; Iris had no idea how big it actually was, standing by the edge in what she hoped was a decent fighting stance. Amanita stood at the other end, the sun reflecting harshly off of her purple chrome exterior. The wind whipped at both machines, and Iris was starting to dislike how good Thanatos was at feeling the cold.

"You're going easy on me, right?" she asked. She'd just about worked out how to separate speaking from thinking.

Amanita's response was deadpan. "If you like."

Klein spoke to both of them at once. "Are you both ready?" She was monitoring them from the safety of the base, through cameras mounted on a couple of circling drones.

At least she got to stay in the warm.

"Ready," Iris said.

"Ready," Amanita echoed.

"Then: go!"

Immediately, Amanita started to move, grabbing the rifle from her back and diving behind cover. She let rip a volley of gunfire at Iris — dummy rounds, of course — before ducking back behind the metal outcrop. The shots flew over Iris' head, but they clearly weren't meant to hit her: it was just to get her to move.

It worked. Startled, Iris rolled to the side, flailing and fumbling for her own gun. It jumped uselessly out of her hands, sliding over to the edge of the arena. A second volley came whizzing by, the last few rounds grazing her arm.

It hurt. Who the fuck decided these things should feel pain?

Breathing through the pain — or whatever the breathless equivalent was — Iris pulled herself behind a nearby bit of cover and counted to ten, trying to give herself space to calm down. The rifle lay tantalisingly out of reach from where she was hiding, and she could hear Amanita approaching from the other side of her shelter.

Iris cursed her own clumsiness. She wasn't used to being this uncoordinated: four arms, and somehow all thumbs.

Amanita's knife came crashing through the metal barrier, missing Iris' chest by what felt like inches. Iris dove to the side, and rolled, somehow managing to find her feet and her wits next to another bit of cover; she ran up it and sprang off, spinning a kick and catching Amanita in the side.

Iris grinned. She couldn't do guns, but this, this was like dancing; she bobbed and weaved around Amanita, throwing fists and feet in all directions. She had no combat skill to work with — she'd never been in a fight before — so she would overwhelm her with raw power, her four arms flailing madly. With one volley of punches, she knocked the gun to the floor. With the next, Amanita was on her knees. With a kick, Amanita was on the ground. Iris grabbed the knives from her holster, and got ready to strike…

Amanita screamed, and Iris froze, staring at the knives in her hands. Suddenly, it was all too real. Could she really hurt another person, like that? Could she inflict pain? Maybe. She wasn't sure.

A part of her hoped that the answer was "no".

Her target rolled, grabbed the gun, and leapt to her feet, putting the barrel against Iris' head.

"Bang," she said. "You're dead."

Iris stood in shock. She'd fought fair. Her opponent had fought dirty, and taken advantage of her sportsmanship.

"That's one to Amanita," Klein said. "Remember, Iris: you can't hesitate. One false move and you're dead."

Colonel Adler spoke. "Let me give you a bit of advice, as a soldier," he said. "The Aberrants scream just like people do, but you need to remember that if you don't kill them, they will kill so many more. It's unpleasant, but it's really in service of the greater good. You have to keep that in mind; all's fair in love and war."

Iris didn't feel much love right now. She just felt sore.

"Again?" Amanita asked.

Iris nodded. This time, she'd do better. They took their positions at either side of the arena once more, and got ready to fight; Iris took note of Amanita's stance, and did her best to copy it.

"Hold it," the Colonel said. "We need you to come back to base. We've detected something."

The New Gloucester cathedral was one of the most impressive buildings in Eden. "Cathedral" was a bit of a misnomer: it was a blocky building, concrete and steel just like so many other buildings in the central districts, though unlike most of them it was wider than it was tall. It had three spires, one in the north, one in the east, and one in the west, each containing its own set of bells that hocketed hymns and calls to worship around the centre of town. Iris had only seen it in person once before, but it had left a stark impression.

That time, of course, there hadn't been an Aberrant sat on top of it. The monster was curled around the northern spire, snaking around it with its distorted, elongated body. It had three eyes and a gaping, toothless mouth, though its limbs were almost human save for the strange ring-like hands that ended its arms. It looked comfortable, like it had always been there.

Iris had never been particularly religious, but the sight of the monster sat on the cathedral felt awful, somehow blasphemous. Something that insulted her sense of humanity. Something that needed to be purified, cleaned away. Something that needed to die.

Amanita opened fire first, sending a barrage of pulse rounds into the creature's shoulder. The bullets sank in without having any obvious effect, except for the chunks of concrete they blew from the spire. The Aberrant sang, a horrible, discordant wail of too many voices, and Amanita sent a second barrage into its mouth. It didn't seem to do any good.

Iris readied her own gun, aiming for the eyes, and squeezed the trigger; a half-dozen bullets came out, hitting the monster in the face. She kept firing, half of her rounds flying wild, desperately praying that one of them would hit it in the right place. Not that she knew where the right place was. You'd think a shot to the head would work, right?

The Aberrant blinked, and sang again. It was like a choir: Iris could pick out individual voices, follow lines of harmony and melody. It wasn't beautiful, but it wasn't ugly; there was clearly some kind of alien logic to the sound. Almost like a real, human choir had been perverted into a new shape. It was a sickening thought.

Nothing was working. What were they meant to do?

Amanita spoke. "I'll get closer. You aim. Wait for it to be vulnerable, then fire in bursts." She put her gun back in its holster and drew her knife. Iris nodded, taking aim once more as she watched Amanita walk gradually closer to the cathedral.

The Aberrant struck quickly, lashing out by extending and flattening one of its arms into a ribbon, slapping Amanita in the side and knocking her into a small tower block. It crumbled beneath her like cardboard. Iris winced: she had to remind herself that there weren't any people in it.

As Amanita righted herself again, Iris' arms started to shake. She reached out with a third one to steady her aim. She wasn't sure exactly where she was meant to be aiming, so she set her sights on the creature's body, what little of it was visible from this side of the spire. What does a weak point even look like, on a thing like that?

The monster lashed out with its other ribbon-arm, wrapping it around Amanita's upper-left arm and pulling. Iris watched as the arm violently came off her comrade's body, hydraulic fluid spurting out and smearing over the nearby buildings, strands of cable and mechanics fraying out from either side of the rupture. Amanita screamed, grasping wildly with her two remaining arms at the Aberrant's limbs and yanking them away from one another.

"Shoot!"

Iris saw red. What good would another round of bullets do? Nothing so far had even really stalled it.

"Hey, asshole!" she shouted. She knew the monster couldn't hear her thought-speech, but she needed to pump herself up. "Take this!" She threw her gun to the side and drew her knives.

Iris leapt into the fray and slashed at the creature's body, paying little attention to the crumbling spires around her. She jammed one knife into the creature's central eye, and the other into the creature's right side, pushing both deep as her other two arms clawed the creature closer. The spire it was wrapped around fell, crashing to the side, and blood spattered all around. This was for Amanita. This was for Dad. This was for her.

She plunged an arm into the creature's chest and tore out its heart.

Iris stood over the wreckage of the cathedral, the heart of a monster in her hand, and watched as the Aberrant shuddered in its death throes. It stopped moving; she dropped the heart and looked over at Amanita, still holding the monster's distorted arms. She felt out of breath, somehow, though she knew she wasn't actually breathing.

The radio crackled with the voice of Doctor Klein. "Incredible, Iris, Amanita," she said. "I couldn't have asked for a better first sortie. Time to come back to base."

They'd won.

Next time:

Iris settles in to her new room in the Thanatos project barracks. She's fought alongside Amanita, now she has to live with her. It's an adjustment, but she's scrappy; she'll make it work, right?

Find out in the next exciting episode. Episode Three: Stratification!