I'd seen a large white orb in a glass tank. Being a composite, and not a solid, the object rippled all over, looking like a giant white hairball with moving hair.

I knew it wasn't hair.

I knew if I got really close to it, it would look like a dead dog's heart after the heartworms had a party around its aorta.

The moment the door came open, the hairs whipped against the glass. They wanted a body to infest.

And then there was the symbol.

The supply crates, the machines, they all had a symbol of a snake head emerging from a flower, the word `DAMBALLAH' stenciled beneath, the same symbol I had hidden inside my stuffed dog.

I had a flash of memory. A bunch of little girls floating in tanks of fluid. Before I could grasp further details, the memory faded.

I felt my chest and head hurting. I'd strained myself again. I took deep breaths, trying to calm down.

"You can't keep doing this," Big Bird said. "Shall I take over until you feel better?"

"No," I groaned. "Let me face...my fear. I...have to."

"I must warn you, if you have another cardiac event of this kind, I will resume control of my body on a semi permanent basis. I cannot appease you emotionally at the expense of your life."

"My brain is stuck to a chair, Big Bird. I don't have a life anymore."

The artificial intelligence paused a moment, contemplating my words.

"Becky, I think I understand the emotion of caring."

To be respectful, I tried to keep skepticism out of my voice. "Oh?"

"Becky, I don't want you to die. Please be careful."

I sighed. "Okay, Big Bird."

I tried to go into the bathtub thing, but I couldn't find it in my mental submarine. "Where is it, Big Bird? Where's the tub?"

"The tub is a construct. You don't need it. Just go through the same mental subroutines."

"What?"

"Just remember the experience think your way into my body."

She was right. I just visualized myself going into that bathtub thing without the bathtub being present, focusing on the sensation of being swallowed up by...electronics, I guess.

When I returned to my android surrogate body, a crack had developed in the glass tank ahead of me.

Only one crack was needed for those things to get out.

I'd seen an orb just like it on LV 426. They'd kept it in a glass case just like that.

Big Bird's neural matrix matched the image to an asteroid extracted from a planetary belt a few light years away.

Unfortunately, the scientists made the mistake of extracting a large Ss'sik'chtokiwij egg from a wrecked spacecraft and storing it in the same general location.

I could view the archival footage of the incident, a scientist getting the thing wrapped around his face, the same man screaming as the larva burst from his chest, crashing backwards into the glass tank with all the wormy things inside.

He pushed the incinerator a little too late.

"...Machine, if you don't shut off the fire safety equipment right now, I will separate your head from your shoulders!"

Ssunamrozedrah was right in my face.

She looked angry.

No...scared, not that I blamed her.

Still, I didn't like people just coming up to me with threatening language right off the bat. "Whoa. You could have at least said please!"

"I've been asking you to help for the last five minutes. I don't have time for politeness!"

I looked down and saw a flamethrower clutched in her claws. "You're going to use that?"

She gave me this expression that she'd use it on me if I didn't move my butt.

"Look. There's a built in incinerator."

"Then use the damn thing! Now!"

I rushed to a control panel, doing my best impression of Data from Star Trek. I had access to the information about the incinerator, but my speed wasn't quite that fast. I did okay, though.

A blast furnace came on, roasting the squirming mound of worms like a bunch of French onions. It made horrible sounds as it burned, like a thousand tiny aliens shrieking, mingled with human-like noises that made you think of tormented leprechaun souls burning in hell.

Ssunamrozedrah shouldered her weapon, aiming at the tank. "Deactivate the fire sprinklers."

"Why? I think we got it covered."

"If you truly understood what these things are, you wouldn't be so confident."

I shut off the sprinklers.

I watched as she blasted the glass tank, turning it into a big shattering fireball blowing into the rear of the laboratory. She torched every glass fragment she could find, obliterated a couple propane canisters for good measure.

She torched everything in the room, to the point where the flamethrower ran out of fuel and the conflagration threatened to spread into the rest of the ship.

When we at last left the area, Ssunamrozedrah said, "There. Now we `have it covered.'"

Obviously, you can't just set fire to a room with the safeties off and not blow up a space station. I had it figured out enough to set up a timer to shut off the air going in, to allow the fire to die off on its own, after first killing everything in the room.

I remembered those worms.

They'd infested a guy named Adam Rapchuck.

Ernie melted off his face, tore chunks off his body, and the worms regrew everything, making it look like no damage had been done at all.

"Those things," Ssunamrozedrah growled. "Those worms! They made my great aunt Ssorzechola into something monstrous!"

I chuckled at the absurdity of a literal monster saying that their family member had become...well, you know.

"Are you ill?" she paused. "Wait. That is the noise one makes when amused! This isn't funny! Do you understand what you're dealing with!"

I swallowed, only for dramatic purposes. "I'm sorry. It's what humans call `gallows humor.' `Sarcola'...I...I think I've heard that name before."

"It's Ssorzechola."

After Ernie connected to my mind, I got scared and ran away from her. I climbed inside the ventilation system, darted through a machine shop, snuck upstairs into someone's living quarters.

When I heard voices outside the door, I hid under the bed, waiting for...whoever it was to go away. Although I didn't relish having Ernie catch up to me, I didn't want to be caught trespassing either.

An Indian guy came into the room. Kind of a weirdo. I'd seen him around the base a lot, always wore a suit, always carried around a bible.

The guy got on the computer, talking to someone on video chat. "Jim, you coming in?"

"I don't know, Kumar," a voice on the computer replied. "It seems like every time it gets dark, another family dies. We've already lost the Viebrocks and the Massoods. I'm not sure I should come back. Is it true what they say about the giant bugs?"

"Satan is roaming like a roaring lion, seeking something to devour. But we are Christ's elect. You shouldn't be afraid. `If God is for us, who in heaven or on earth can be against us?''

"So you're saying come back to base anyway."

"No no!" Ernie cried, making frantic gestures inside the ventilation register. "Stay there!"

Kumar turned his head for a moment, like he heard her, but then shrugged it off, continuing to talk. "If you're truly in the Spirit, you will have faith, and trust in God to protect you."

"You're right. I'm sorry. Are we...meeting in the same room?"

"Yes, Jim. Upstairs at Noah and Sunny's place."

"What's that under your bed?"

Kumar turned his chair around. "Do you see something...?"

I tried to run out the door, but he grabbed me by the wrist, nearly twisting it out of its socket when I tried to get free. "Hey! Who are you?"

Kumar grabbed me by the shoulders. "What are you doing in my room? How did you get in here?"

"Ask her who her parents are," said the voice on the computer.

I sighed and stopped struggling. "Can I please go?"

"Not just yet," Kumar said in a crisp tone. "Where are your parents?"

"They're gone." I didn't have time for these games.

"What do you mean `gone'?"

"The monsters took them away. Can I go now?"

"I don't think so. Before we do anything, we need to find your parents. And since you're a flight risk, I'm taking you to stay with one of my friends."

"No!" I struggled, but it was no use.

Some people at Hadley's Hope joined trailers together to make a shared living space. This one was set up like a church. A house church. Religious pictures, a pulpit, folding chairs, piles of hymnals and bibles...

I met the man's wife and her baby, the guy took a picture of me, then tried to introduce me to...Sunny.

Crazy Korean chick. Always preaching bible stuff at people. While I know some evangelism is good, she didn't do enough relationship building, she mostly just spouted bible verses at them. Even my pastor said she didn't have a life. She sucked the air out of the room.

"No thank you," I told the Indian. "I'm leaving."

The man sighed. "What's your name?"

"Newt," I said.

Kumar rolled his eyes. "Look. Newt. There are bad things attacking people in this base. You need to stay with an adult so they can protect you. All I'm asking is for you to stay with Sunny for a couple hours while I try to find your parents. If they're alive, I'll take you back to them."

"My parents are dead," I growled.

Kumar frowned. "No offense, but I'd like to see that for myself. Too many young girls run away from their parents and claim to be orphans. I'm really hoping you're wrong, because if we can't find your parents or other living relations, we might have to find you a new family."

"I don't want a new family! I'm fine on my own!"

The man shook his head sadly. "You're not fine. The bible says to teach a child in the way they should go, so that they will not depart from it."

I just glared at him, quoting the same crap he'd used to make that guy on the computer risk his life to come over there. "The bible also says that, if you're truly in the Spirit, you will have faith, and trust in God to protect you."

Kumar sighed through his nostrils. "That's...true, but God also tells us to love our neighbors, and their children...C'mon. Let's go see Sunny. Maybe she can get you some cookies or show you some games."

My stomach rumbled. "What kind of cookies?"

And so I fell into his trap.

Sunny was a small, tan old lady with glasses and curly gray-black hair. She had a fat little toddler with her that she swung around by his arms like a chimp as she waddled up to me. The kid's name was Abraham.

When she saw me, she laughed, staring wide eyed. "Oh! Hello! How are you?" She said these words like someone had written them on a cue card, and was just stumbling through them.

"I'm fine," I muttered.

"Sorry? I see you before, but I do not remember your name?"

"Newt."

Sunny furrowed her brow. "I'm sorry?

"Newt. N.E.W.T."

The woman looked genuinely puzzled. "I...do not think that is your name."

"Well then you don't think much, because it is."

"I caught her hiding in my bedroom," Kumar said. "Would you mind watching her for a few minutes while I try to find her parents?"

Sunny chuckled. "Okay! I will do it!" She paused. "Good luck."

Kumar put his hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry. Sunny's going to take good care of you." He left her in the company of this other stranger.

I got led to a padded bench, conveniently close to a bench.

Her kid pointed at me, crying something I couldn't understand, probably in Korean, though with a child that age it could be nonsense.

"Yes, yes," Sunny said. "That is Newt!"

And she spent a moment coaching Abraham how to pronounce the name, explaining what newts were.

"Please. Have a seat," Sunny said. "Would you like snack? Or juice?"

"Um..."

"I have pizza. Would you like some?"

"Yes please," I stammered.

At the time, Timmy was still alive, but i didn't want him getting trapped like me, so I didn't rat him out...even if he could have used a meal.

Okay, so maybe I was being a little selfish too. I hadn't eaten since last night. But I figured if he found me, I could always slip him something later on...or maybe get him to help me to escape and steal food from Sunny's cabinets on the way out.

As she left me to make preparations in the kitchen, I began to have second thoughts. Timmy really did need me, and if I kept hanging around, I'd end up adopted by a bunch of boring strangers. I worked on opening a ventilation register.

I nearly had it all the way off when I found Ernie staring back at me from behind the panel. Turns out she'd been stalking me the whole time. Her and her little friend, (lemon cake).

"Hi," Ernie said with a wave.

"Move away from the hole," I snarled. "I'm getting out of here."

"I can't let you do that. You're safe here. There's safety in numbers. These people seem nice."

"They seem like assholes," I said. "I don't like them."

Ernie shook her head. "You need someone to take care of you, and they want to help."

"I don't need help."

(Lemon cake, lemon cake)

Sunny came back with a crappy homemade pizza she'd made with ketchup and processed American cheese. She'd even burned the crust. To add insult to injury, she also gave me this terrible tasting organic juice to wash it down with.

Sunny marched to a door at the opposite end of the room. "Noah! Someone is here!"

I slipped the pizza into Ernie's vent when the woman wasn't looking.

The door slid open. A brown beady eyed man with slicked down hair and dress clothing sat a desk, reading the bible to a young man in a jumpsuit.

"Noah!" Sunny called again.

The man at the desk set his papers down. "Yes, Sunny?"

"Noah, we have guest."

Noah stood up. "Oh!"

When he saw me, he chuckled. "Wow. Who is this?"

"She...call herself `Newt.'"

The man chuckled some more. It seemed he found everything a little amusing. "Newt?"

"Yes. Like eye of newt." She pantomimed stirring a pot.

"Oh! Ha ha. You know, there was once Senator with name `Newt' as well. Perhaps she is named after him?"

"I...do not think that is her name. I see her before, but I do not think so. I think this is nickname."

"Oh," he said with a tone of concern. "I see."

"Kumar is searching for parents. Maybe someone will know."

"When you find out, let me know. I would like to meet them." He gestured to his companion. "Please excuse me?"

"What chapter are you reading now?" Sunny asked.

"Oh..." Noah said in a tone that almost sounded like bragging. "Luke the twenty first chapter."

"Wow," Sunny said. "That's good!"

I kept shrinking in my seat, eying the vent, but the alien wasn't moving.

A few moments after Noah stepped back into his room, Abraham muttered something to his mother, and she brought out a potty chair, encouraging him to pee right in front of everybody. Blah.

The woman then put on a lame religious cartoon for me to watch, one of those things with low production values and no character development. I kept checking the vent, but the alien didn't budge an inch. One time I thought she was gone, but then she appeared the moment I moved the register.

And then Kumar returned, looking sad.

"Oh!" Sunny cried, marching up to him. "What did you find out?"

The Indian handed her a clear plastic trophy. "She was right. She's an orphan. Her real name is Rebecca Jorden. Her mother and father were wildcatters, and they got attacked by something. Administration is still reviewing her case."

Gee, thanks for reminding me, Kumar.

"They're going to try to find the next of kin, and either move her in with them or ship her to earth," the man said. "In the meantime, they say she can stay with us, as long as they have someone to contact in the event of finding her family. You have a very good civilian record."

"So does she!" Sunny cried, waving the trophy. "You win Young Citizenship Award?"

I didn't want to talk to her. I really didn't. "Maybe."

Sweetie frowned. "She...does not look happy."

"Would you blame her? She's been living all by herself for weeks." Kumar's expression now reflected puzzlement. "You know what's odd? Her teachers say she has been regularly attending classes this whole time. They didn't even know there was a problem until I asked about it.

"They said some of her stories about staying with her uncle seemed suspicious, but nobody bothered to check if she actually had an uncle here.

"Her attendance wasn't that good before, especially around the time of the explosion, and when her father went into medlab, but after that, perfect attendance."

"Oh! I think she...avoid adoption." Sweetie pantomimed being Rebecca. "Hello! Nothing is wrong!" she said with a fake grin and a wave. "You do not need adopt-me! I am fine! See? I go to school!"

Kumar nodded, looking grave. "You're probably right."

They'd found me out.

For a week now, me and Timmy had been going to classes by day, stealing and scavenging by night. We brought our lunches, packed with stuff from the J. Catt place, or paid for cafeteria food with the small amounts of money we found in his dresser drawers and cabinets. Sometimes we bartered his property for meals. I think the guy was dead. I never saw him once.

And now Sunny knew everything, and had probably already told my teachers.

"I am sorry," she said to me. "But you must stay here until we find you good-home."

My life just kept getting worse.

"Her family was out when they were requiring people to put the biometric trackers in. Anyone that tries to find her normally can't."

"I do not either," Sunny said. "Tracker is mark of Satan! I refuse on religious-grounds." She held up a stopping hand for dramatic emphasis. "I sign form." She pantomimed writing, unnecessarily.

The Indian sighed. "I'm only saying, it will be difficult to find her if she runs off, so we need to keep an eye on her."

"We will be careful! I watch."

On Hadley's Hope, we kept an earth-like calendar. I mention this because, for some reason, Sunny and her friends decided to have a church service on Saturday. She made me set up chairs and I got introduced to a bunch more strangers, mostly Korean people.

I asked Noah why he didn't just worship with the other church, in the actual chapel, but he said, "They teach false gospel."

"Why don't you go there and correct them?"

He laughed. "It is not so easy. They have not been chosen, so God has hardened their hearts. They stand in judgment, but we can save the faithful chosen."

"You...don't want them to change their mind and join you?"

"No. If God makes them into his vessels, and later join us, perhaps, but otherwise, they were chosen by God to be his vessels of wrath."

"So God creates people to be thrown away."

"Yes."

I furrowed my brow. "Gee, your god sounds like the guy who makes Post granola cereals."

The sarcasm was lost on him. He blinked at me stupidly. "I'm sorry?"

I just sighed and rolled my eyes. "You're all crazy."

"We are beside ourselves for the Lord."

Sunny's kid jabbered at me with baby talk, pawing at my leg.

"Abraham likes you," Noah laughed.

I groaned in annoyance.

The guy Kumar had been threatening with religious language dropped by. He was pale, gaunt, with a long nose and undertaker hair. I listened as he chatted with his Indian `friend.'

"What do you think those things are?"

"I don't know, Jim. The bible says that in the Last Days, all sorts of things will come out of the earth. I know we're living out in space now, but who's to say that Satan hasn't sent some of his demons to follow us out across space?"

"Are you sure they weren't already there? I mean, demons are fallen angels. What if the traditional view of cosmology is right, and we're really in heaven? God put angels outside Eden so man couldn't get back in. What if these things are serving the same purpose?"

"This isn't heaven," Kumar argued. "I know that the moment I get up in the morning and reprogram those machines in a downpour."

"So maybe we're outside heaven. Like that passage from Revelation talking about the Gentiles marching around heaven's outer walls..."

"I...don't think you're reading that in the right context. Let's ask Noah."

The two pulled the older Korean man aside.

"Yes?"

"Noah," Jim said. "What do you think about extraterrestrials?"

"Oh!" he laughed. "That is a myth. There is no such thing. Satan has planted the lie of evolution into the hearts of scientists. They say, `since evolution is true, there must be other planet with evolved intelligent thinking men. All lies." He waved his hand as if to disperse the theory of evolution like a puff of smoke.

"I've seen pictures of them," Jim said. "They looked real to me."

"So do movies," Noah said. "They are fake. Like Photo Shop." He chuckled, literally saying, "Yuk yuk."

I could take no more of this. "You guys are idiots. I've seen them. You don't know what you're talking about. I saw one of them kill my mother and the other one tore a hole through dad's chest."

Noah sighed. "I admit devil takes many forms, but sometimes when person is traumatized, they see things because they are afraid, or guilty."

"What are you saying?" I said in a cold tone.

"I believe there are no space aliens. Maybe a man killed your mother and you were frightened and thought you saw a monster. Maybe also your father get sick, and your mind made it seem like an alien attack him."

"And maybe you're stupid. And maybe if you walk around the base once and awhile, you'd see I'm right."

Noah let out a nervous chuckle. "Did your...parents, teach you speak disrespectfully like this?"

"No. I learned it from you being stupid.."

"Your parents must have been...very interesting."

I wanted to punch him in the crotch, but about that time service started.

They had nice music, but the sermons were boring. They had essays, and read them like school reports.

And then Ssorzechola showed up.

She was a big gray Ss'sik'chtokiwij with horns, and these gun things growing out of her face. Her body had wire brush-like hair follicles sticking up all over, six arachnid-like legs and a swollen arachnid's abdomen patterned with a fiddle shaped birthmark.

Without a sound, she entered the room through a hole in the ceiling, stabbing the guitarist with a scorpion-like tail stinger, whipping him up into a hidden crawl space between their ceiling and the roof.

She had somehow melted or torn a hole through the metal in complete silence.

She lowered herself, opossum-like, into the room with that spear tail, firing the gun things.

They were like the eyes of a gecko, and they shot porcupine-like barbs like a machine gun. The barbs acted like tranquilizer darts, knocking a bunch of people out.

It was horrible. I know, I hated the strangers, but that doesn't mean I wanted them dead...or birthing alien larva.

I did the only thing I could think of. I hid inside the kitchen, working off the bolts of the nearest vent cover.

When I heard Noah playing the role of exorcist, I had to peek around the corner to see how this would play out.

The thing had horns, but that in itself didn't mean anything. You don't go in front of a stampeding bull at a rodeo with a bible and expect it to not gore you to death.

The monster growled at him, then vomited a million tapeworm things into his face.

I watched them disappear into his body. It pretty much took away any appetite I had left after that pizza.

A moment later, Noah gasped and sat up, looking perfectly normal.

He gave his clothing a casual brush off, stood up, and marched out of the room.

The man went off the deep end after that. He started a cult, fed a bunch of people to the aliens, got dozens more impregnated with larva.

And I thought he was a fanatical cult leader before.

The worms had created the monster, and here they were again, in the Auriga's restricted lab.

I prayed to God that the fire would be enough to stop them.