Superior-1 knelt on the cold floor of her own quarters, her grey mask beside her, her face bare and streaked with tears she couldn't control. Her hands were drenched in blood—not hers, never hers—scrubbing at the boots of the woman who stood over her.
Behind her, a corpse lay sprawled against the wall. An Architect. White mask. Dead maybe an hour. The blood was still wet.
Jenny Damber looked down at Superior-1 with an expression of pure, maternal affection. Her smile was wide, warm, utterly terrifying.
"What do you think you're doing, honey?" Her voice was sweet, almost loving.
Superior-1's hands trembled. "I didn't—I wasn't—"
"You were thinking without my permission." Jenny's boot lifted, pressing gently against Superior-1's cheek. Not hard enough to hurt. Just enough to remind her who was in charge. "We talked about this, remember? You think with my permission. You act with my permission. You breathe with my permission."
Superior-1 nodded frantically, tears dripping onto the blood-soaked floor.
Jenny's smile widened. "Good girl. Now." She withdrew her boot, letting Superior-1 slump forward. "How are the preparations going? Do you have the launch key?"
"Yes." Superior-1's voice was small, broken. "I have it. Everything is ready."
"Good honey." Jenny's voice dripped with false sweetness. "Deploy them. All of them. Every robot, every monster, every weapon we have. Send them to Australia."
Superior-1 looked up, confusion flickering through the fear. "To kill the Monster Queen?"
Jenny's head tilted. "Kill? No, no, no, my little angry bird." She crouched down, bringing her face level with Superior-1's. "Tell them to bring her alive. Bring all of them alive—anyone they find. I want to feast."
The words hung in the air, heavy and terrible.
Superior-1 nodded quickly. "I'll do it. I'll do it right now."
Jenny reached out and patted her cheek, leaving bloody fingerprints. "Good pet."
Behind them, the corpse stared at nothing.
---
Prime 10 was gone.
Called away to handle the chaos Lily had created—Prime Architects dead, positions empty, the whole hierarchy crumbling. She'd left Superior-1 in charge, trusting her to hold things together.
She didn't know about Jenny. Didn't know about the puppet strings. Didn't know that the woman she'd left in command was now just a tool in someone else's game.
Jenny stood at the window, watching the facility below, watching the thousands of robots and monsters preparing for deployment. Her smile hadn't faded.
She knew who the Monster Queen was now.
Not her name—she still didn't have that. But she remembered that girl from all those years ago. The one with the tiger. The one who'd watched her kill the boy. The one whose face had held that particular emptiness that Jenny recognized so well.
She'd nearly killed her once.
Now the girl was coming for her.
Jenny's smile widened.
Come find me, little queen. I'll be waiting.
The robots marched. The monsters stirred. And somewhere in Australia, a girl with a scarred face commanded apocalypses, unaware of the army sailing toward her shores.