“Okay,” I said, “I’ll be ready then.”

The next hour was dominated by inserting implants into people. It wasn’t much work, but the egg didn’t spit out implants instantly. It made one at a time and each had to be physically manufactured, loaded with software, and tested.

While I could describe the process in a sentence, each word encompassed thousands of actions, all of them culminating in a device that hooked into the body as, for all practical purposes, a secondary brain—a support brain, maybe?

In short, it wasn’t casual even though any observer could be forgiven for thinking we were waiting for a gumball from an oddly shaped machine.

For each member except for Jaclyn, Marcus, and Cassie, I picked the ball out of the tray, handed it to them, and told them, “Hold it next to the skin under your chin.”

Vaughn held the little silver ball in his hand, “What if I swallow it?”

Thinking about how the insertion process worked, I said, “It could still work, but I wouldn’t. The nearer to the brain, the better. If it gets too far down, it will have to travel back to the head. Plus, there’s a small chance it might not activate in the digestive system and go… uh… all the way.”

Raising an eyebrow, Vaughn said, “Great,” and held the ball on the inside of his chin. It passed through, leaving no trace of its passage, either as a spot of blood or a visible lump.

I’d already told everyone that implants would take time to integrate into their bodies, so Vaughn only said, “That was easy,” and got out of the way.

Haley didn’t ask any questions until after the implant passed through her skin, “Does it ever go wrong?”

“In humans,” I said, “so seldom that it’s practically non-existent. There are more issues in aliens, depending on the type.”

Her mouth quirked, “Good. Well, unless you’re the wrong kind of alien.”

“Yeah,” I thought back to Hideaway, “they’re particularly problematic for plants, I guess. I told you about Crawls-Through-Desert? I don’t think he had an implant.”

“Right,” Haley laughed, “the secret agent in a floating flower pot? I want to meet him someday.”

“You never know,” I said. “There are places where he’d blend in. There’s no reason to send him here, though.”

She shook her head, “I hope not.”

Haley stuck around for most of the insertions, but near the end left with Sydney, Camille, and Julie. They still had more details to hash out about tomorrow’s meeting.

Kayla came through as the second to last person with Cassie giving her a smile from a chair next to one of the tables.

“I’m just going to get it over with,” she said, the slump of her shoulders making it obvious that she still didn’t love the idea.

When I handed her the implant, she didn’t hesitate even if she did grit her teeth, holding it under her chin where it disappeared. As she realized that it had left her hand, she blinked, saying “That was easy, but I don’t feel anything.”

I shrugged, “It’ll be a few hours before it fully hooks into everything.”

Her brow furrowed at that and she glanced down at her empty hand. “I still don’t like the idea of it hooking into anything. I’m only doing this because Haley’s right. I need every advantage I can get.”

Cassie stood up from her chair and put her hand on Kayla’s shoulder, “It will be fine. We’ve had implants for years now and we’re all okay. They’ve been useful constantly.”

Shaking her head, Kayla said, “I know. It’s just… The Thing that Eats wanted to take over our bodies. The Dominators want to control our minds. The mushroom zombies wanted both and now I’m putting weird, alien technology inside myself. I don’t know, you know?”

She left with Cassie, but by the time they’d left the lab, Cassie had said something that made Kayla laugh.

Amy was last. She slipped in the door after they left. She was in her normal body—a few inches shorter than I was, with a pale face, and red hair that almost reached her shoulders. Since the battle with the mushroom zombies ended, she’d been wearing leggings and sweatshirts and today wasn’t an exception.

Sitting on a stool next to the counter where the egg had been placed, she said, “I didn’t want to make a scene, but I can’t take an implant.”

“Really?” I thought about it, asking, “Do previous Bloodmaidens have a problem with it?”

“Yes,” she said, drawing out the word, “but not for the reason you’re thinking.”

“Okay,” I said. “Why?”

She let out a breath, “My transformation. Every time I do it, I’m remade into the form of the Bloodmaiden. The best-case scenario is that the implant will only exist when I’m normal, but it’s more likely that it will disappear from reality and go where ever invasive objects go when I transform. Transformation prevents disease, dispels most magic, and keeps me safe in ways I don’t fully understand, but it won’t be good for implants.”

I considered it, “You can keep objects like your communicator along if you want. So if it stays external, it should be fine, right?”

“If it’s a piece of jewelry, I can keep it on me during transformation. I keep the communicator in my hand while I transform because it’s a little large. How big is this?”

I checked with the egg for options and it had a few. “What would you prefer? I could make it a ring, bracelet, or a necklace?”

“I already have a necklace.” She tapped her chest over the spot where her sweatshirt hid the dark silver necklace and red ruby that was a physical manifestation of the Bloodmaiden mantle when she wasn’t transformed. The necklace was also an obvious invitation to would-be thieves.

She glanced down at her right hand. “Make it a ring. Can you make it match the necklace? It doesn’t have to have a giant red gem, but a small one maybe, and don’t make the metal gold.”

“Done,” I said, giving the egg the parameters. Not long after that, a ring fell out of the hole that opened (and closed) at the bottom of the egg.

Amy stared at it for a moment but then picked it up and put it on, jerking and saying, “Oh,” as she got it in place. “I can feel it already. I thought it would take hours.”

“It’s different for the external version since it only has to connect to your nervous system instead of integrate into your body,” I said.

She held up her hand to inspect the ring, “I didn’t think it would match the style of the necklace this well.”

I peered at it. The egg matched the dark, silver metal and the ruby stone. The ornamentation around the gem reminded me of the necklace’s links. “It must have pulled that from my head. I told it to match the necklace. I didn’t give specifics.”

“When are you going to give Haley a ring?” Amy asked.

I blinked, realizing I had no answer for that. “Not in the middle of this,” I said.

“No,” she said, “but you should consider it. You’ve been together for a long time.”

* * *

The question lingered in my head the next morning even though I should have been focusing on other things.

I sat in my van with Daniel and Izzy in front of Justice Fist’s headquarters. I’d disguised the van, setting it to display the city seal on the doors with the words, “City of Grand Lake.” The words “Grand Lake Municipal Utilities,” ran along the side like half a dozen identical vans I’d seen that day.

I’d tinted the windows enough that people couldn’t see inside. We didn’t need people knocking on the doors to ask why we weren’t assisting in the ongoing mushroom goo cleanup.