A/N: I'll only be making regular updates to this fic on {archiveofourown . org} under the same username (windyfiend)! I love you guys, but ffn is simply too frustrating to format, post, and edit, and writing shouldn't be frustrating. You can also always find me on Tumblr, also under the same username. Maybe occasionally there'll be a new chapter here. Take care!

This fic is a sequel and companion to A Strange Comet and assumes you've read that fic first.

Cold air scraped their open mouths in the dark, an echo, running footsteps, the thrash of their hearts, grip of their hands crushed to one another ( never let go, never let go ) while behind them swelled the fiery light and stench of blood and anger and burned flesh and the walls shifted black and rippling, screaming with the dead scratched scrawls of their devouring god:

RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9

*they betrayed us* HK's voice murmured all around them, in their skulls and in the cracked concrete, and they flung up the stairs with the dark and demons at their back, a flicker of firelight high ahead in the open door.

*betrayers, heretics, traitors. show them what happens to those who defy our god. their screams will become one with our higher purpose.*

They tore out of the dark and into the gnashing light of the candles, their shadows flickered across the stained floor, crashed through the cold metal door and into the night and the snow and the cold striking needles and Traci slammed the door against the jagged whispers at their heels while Trace turned and-

*WHACK*

-dropped to the ice, crushed by a baseball bat while Traci scratched and bit and twisted and fought, then grabbed Trace by the shoulder and hauled her quick and stumbling and racing through the snow-choked alley, but another human shadow stepped out into their path.

Trace's throat snagged tight, constricted, a sharp blade in her back, and she reached up for a handful of the human's bloody scalp, and over his howl she cried "TRACI RUN!" before the knife gashed her throat, snapped wires and tubes with a hot gush of blue blood and the last thing she heard before she let go was the barbed and desperate scream of the one she loved more than life itself.

Trace opened her eyes, but these eyes belonged to something else.

The racing heart was too small. The teeth too sharp.

She stood up on all fours in the winter moonlight; her orange tail twitched and her claws scraped the ice. The whirr and shiver of her tiny biocomponents were unfamiliar…

...but she was alive.

Traci.

She whirled in place, and she saw the familiar yard behind Jericho's office, the barren trees and the snow-heavy bushes, and it didn't matter how or why she was here.

Traci needed her.

She tried to call, but there was no connectivity function. Nothing with which she could remotely communicate, just a simple shell in the shape of a household pet. Isolated.

"JERRY!" she screamed up at the sixth-floor window, but her voice was only a high-pitched yowl. "HELP ME! OPEN UP! JERRY!" The cat-screech turned to a bitter sob, then a snarl of bristling, deadly fury.

There was no way that oblivious idiot was going to stop her from saving Traci.

She raced like lightning around the office building, but all the windows were sealed tight against the cold. She leaped up onto the narrow door handle, braced her paws and pushed with all of her tiny strength until she'd opened a sliver of warm air from inside. It was enough for a paw to slip in, and she squeezed through.

After that it was only a matter of the elevator, a bounce and a quick jab at the bright-lit button, and the doors dinged and opened. With a leap and a kick, '6' lit up and the elevator closed the twitchy growly orange cat inside.

*scritch scritch scritch scritch*
*YOOOOOWWWWLLLL!*

Strange noises scratched at the office door while inside the Jerrys panicked.

"We're trying to call her, Markus," said one, pacing the floor, "but Traci's not answering us, either."

"Simon just called," said another, his voice a shocked breath. "He's at the monument. He found Trace's … head."

"Markus…" the first sobbed.

"We've got Josh," stammered a third. "He made it to the bridge, Traci's still there but she's about to jump. Josh, help is coming to you! Connor's en route! We're with you, we'll help you through this. Just breathe, stay with her until Connor gets there."

A fourth Jerry sat with his head in his hands, shaking, terrified, tears pooling at his feet.

The noises at the door had stopped.

Trace flung across the frozen city like something possessed, a streak of orange in the gray ice and snow, over doorways and rooftops in a straight bounding line for the shining bright bridge in the distance and the black icy river beneath, screaming into the emptiness.

I'm here, I'm here, I'm here, don't let go, don't let go, don't let go, don't let go, you have everything to live for, I love you, I love you, DON'T LET GO…

She spotted Connor as he slipped away into the sprawl of the city, his face machine-cold, his hand dripping blue. He was going the wrong way.

She saw Josh, streaked with tears, Hank's arm around him, guiding him to the open door of a cab.

They were going the wrong way.

Trace skittered quick along the bridge, where the lights glowed pale over the endless flow of cars and rumbling trucks like the world could just go on as if nothing ever happened.

"TRACI!" she yowled, and her voice couldn't form the name but she knew that Traci would know her, would understand without words, would turn back and smile and come running for an embrace, and they could put this night behind them.

She found a blue stain on a pillar. A chaos of footsteps in the veil of snow. A mark left behind by hands slipped from the frozen rail.

Ice drifted like corpses into the darkness beneath.

Trace stood at the edge where Traci had been
and screamed.