Beneath the stage lights and a thick layer of makeup, Zahra Nassar could barely see a thing. But that was how she liked it. In her mind, if she couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see her. In the tinted glass amour of the moment, she became someone else – no longer the strange-looking girl peeking out from behind a computer screen. She could hardly believe it herself, but she could do it. She could sing.

Paris had been everything she had dreamed it could be – at least for the first 45 minutes or so. Fresh off the plane and all but homeless, Zahra quickly encountered the seedy underbelly of the city’s social clime. Just as she wanted to. Within 20 minutes from first contact, she had an in – a local gentleman was in desperate need of a bartender for his jazz club. It felt like a godsend. For a moment, she had to wonder if indeed it was.

Very well, she had her cover and source of income. Learning each and every cocktail recipe and colloquial drink order the internet could provide was simple. That only took about 2 hours. Every second counted. For the first few nights, at least until her first paycheck, shelter was found in lean-tos, raised in a different place in the city each night. She was quite adept at remaining at the fringes of society. It was everything she had ever learned to do – be quiet, stay out of sight, pretend you don’t exist. The blood in her veins, perpetually ablaze, kept her warm on the colder nights. After the first paycheck from the jazz club cleared, she found a more permanent settlement in the company of a middle-aged couple who were renting out the room above their dance studio. She was more than happy to comply with their tenancy rules; the music leaking through the floor each late evening helped to lull her into a pleasant delusion of comfort, as though everything were alright and would be that way forever. But nothing’s forever. Everything’s inevitable.

Her hidden talent had been discovered within weeks. Singing to herself in the jazz club’s storage room downstairs, she had been encountered by one of her co-workers, who happened to have been friends with the contracted bassist for the club’s house band.

And so, only six months after the Code had been activated, she stood beneath the blinding stage lights in someone else’s skin – a girl who had never existed until now. She was no longer Zahra Nassar. She was now Hélène Bissette, the latest sensation to hit the underground jazz scene of Paris: Le chat de l'enfer – The Hellcat. She’d even altered her already-outlandish appearance, allowing the pink dyes to roll back and reveal her natural dark-brown hair, which she promptly manipulated by shaving one side with a size 1 guard. With the larger paycheck from the singing gig adding onto her usual lunch shifts, she’d been able to afford a flashier wardrobe, but she only wore those gorgeous dresses on stage. She couldn’t be attracting attention in public. By day, she lived as Hélène. At night, she became The Hellcat. Her postpubescent dreams had come true, visually, artistically, spiritually…

But slowly, her fantasy come true began to unravel. It was subtle at first, like something lurking out of the corner of her eye. Normally blind atop the stage, one night was quite different. For just one moment, a little speck of time, she could swear the lights were not the brightest thing in the club. There was something else beneath the layer of iridescence – something almost as bright. When Zahra returned back to her apartment that night, her breath hung heavy in the early winter air, like a word that needed to be uttered, but simply mustn’t. A few nights later, the same. A figure, vaguely humanoid in shape, glowed beneath the overbearing yellow-white luminescence. Over time and repeated visits from this ball of skeletal light, and it was starting to become real to Zahra. Soon, she would be unable to deny it. She’d have to move onto the second stage. And that scared the hell out of her.

Tonight, she was scheduled for a relatively short set, but as she applied her makeup backstage under the careful eye of her voluntary stylist, Florian, she couldn’t help but fear that the figure would appear again. In the midst of applying her mascara, her hand, unconsciously shaking, slipped and jabbed the prongs of the object medium of vanity into her cornea.

“Fils de pute (son of a bitch)!” she yelped, screwing the mascara back together and tossing the tube back onto the vanity mirror stand.

“Ce est quoi le problème avec vous ce soir (What the fuck is wrong with you tonight)?” exclaimed Florian in his effeminate register.

“Désolé. Je suis juste un peu nerveux ce soir (Sorry. I’m just a little nervous tonight),” replied Zahra, lying through her painted red lips. The anxiety had been stabbing at her gut all day. During her lunch shift, she had vomited up the light lunch she’d eaten only an hour prior. Something about tonight felt wrong, almost as though tonight was to be the night the Psycho string orchestra finished tuning. The conductor raised his baton. Zahra took in a deep breath.

“♫ La mer… ♫”

Halfway through the song, it happened. The figure beneath the lights reared up once more. Except this time, something quite extraordinary appeared from beneath the usual blurry glow of what Zahra now realized was actually the residual radiance of the lights off the skin of a frighteningly pale girl in the audience. A vast and horrifying realization swept through Zahra’s mind, and she stumbled through the rest of the verse. It couldn’t be. But it was.

And then Zahra saw the eyes staring intently at her upon the stage, and there was no doubt.

Mystica had sent out a message.

And Annie Gardner had come to deliver it.

“Hate to interrupt at such a juicy moment, but I have some things to add. We’ll come back to Miss Nassar’s adorable little infatuation in a bit. Other things first.

Oh, bring it down, lads. It’s not like you’re going to walk out of this collision under your own power. Bloviate away, but really...bring it down to earth. Let’s stop pretending that you’re something to be reckoned with. You’re just stealing clichés from the lips of those who would say the same about me. It’s not a bloody dick-measuring contest. But it may be a game of numbers.

See, as brilliant as I may seem to your small-minded species, my brilliance is merely the ability to crunch numbers at an impossible rate. This is another one of those weapons I told you about, and I’m shoving the handle into your hand. Pay attention.

What was the one thing – the one thing I emphasized most to you boys, hm? Was it something along the lines of, “pay attention!”? And yet you remain shrouded in a cloud of ignorance. It is of your own volition, and therefore, you take responsibility for the consequences. Enjoy your slow, molecular deconstruction. You think me just some old man? Are you insane?

(If you are insane, please contact me about a job offer at ---------@----------.--)

Hah! I’ve become more powerful than your infantile minds could possibly comprehend! The discovery of a billion lifetimes! Scientific post-physics revolution beyond measure! I could be anyone. Your mailman. Your boss. Your mother.

And I am proper ashamed of my son.

Actually, I do have a son, but he’s been doing well. Oh, and I have a daughter. More on that later. Other things to discuss first.

My missing artifice mistress, Zahra. Try saying that one three times fast. I bet you’ll choke to death on your tongues.

…that’s the saying, yes? The vernacular phrase?”

“No. Tongue twister.”

“Regardless, Miss Nassar was intrepid when I initially gave the signal to scatter. Rather than flee to the east or south, Zahra went north. See, you’d think she was the lone-wolf type, but…

She’d been left without her bundle of gadgets, trifles, and experiments-- nary so much as a mobile phone; she’d been wise enough to throw that away in the strong current of a river as she made her way across the border undetected into Canada. Technically, she figured this meant that she was in compliance with one of the subsets to Code Osmosis: flee the country. I had meant to change that subset to “leave the continent, but alas.

Nevertheless, once in Canada, it had been rather simple for her to steal the necessary components for forging federal documents. From there, the world was open to her. And where did she choose? Why, the city she had seen in old movie reels on Friday nights in her friends’ basements when she had been a teenager. Little miss tecchie had always been a bit of an alternative sort of gal. What an intriguing creature, indeed.

Unlike the rest of you. I could be put to sleep by your mindless ramblings. You sound as though you were forced through a narrow drainpipe at birth. Squishy, helpless. Human beings, at birth, are the most fragile creatures on earth. Why is it, then, that they may grow up to become the second-most powerful creature on earth? I say second-most powerful only because I exist. You will always be second best to me. Always.

I know this for sure, but you? You don't know. Not yet. Such powerful truth, such forbidden knowledge, must be demonstrated. And that this the price you shall pay for your ignorance...for your insolence. I shall be forced to demonstrate my power -- to mow you down like a wheat thresher through a pig pen. Your own hubris is about to melt your wings. You flew too close to the sun, my boys. I do hope you understand the metaphor. No, not just the Flight of Icarus parable, you dolts! I AM the sun! You are trying too hard to become more than you are. And I will gladly humble you. Time to come back down to earth, lads. Crashing.

And everything will make sense when you awaken in a casket, preferably pine -- I recommend it, if only for the pleasant scent you'll have as you sputter out your last breaths of air six feet beneath my heels..."