The lights in the corridor flickered in time with the tremors that shook the walls and floor, threatening her footing as she ran. Nephilim followed her, clinging to her hand, and occasionally Juli risked a glance back at her to make sure she was still safe; she kept so quiet it was hard to tell.

They were too deep inside the building to evacuate, so Juli had placed a distress call from the lab, then took Nephilim and fled in search of a safer part of the building to wait out the attack. If Jin's reports were correct, if this incident was like the others, they would only have to wait a short time before the Gnosis retreated. Some part of her mind noted all this with perfect clarity while the rest of her panicked.

She yanked Nephilim around a corner as huge, distorted shapes shimmered and grew solid in the room ahead. Her heart knifed inside her chest; this was like Miltia all over again, maybe worse. The corridor she had ducked into was narrower and dimmer than the central hall, with a storage closet at the far end. She shoved Nephilim inside and pulled the door shut as she followed. They stood in darkness, the rasp of her own breathing filling the space above the roar of explosions and the groans of the building's framework, and the world receded into the distance. She knew they were really no safer here than out in the open, and if the Gnosis materialized in this room they would have little chance of escaping, but she felt calmer in isolation, and she needed to be calm to figure out what to do next.

At first it was too dark to see inside the room, but light bled in around the door and she began to make out her own faint outline and Nephilim's as her eyes adjusted. She sat down in the corner, hugging her knees to her chest, feeling the aftershocks of distant explosions shuddering up through the floor. Nephilim came over and sat down next to her, and Juli drew an arm around her and toyed with her long pale hair, trying to comfort them both.

She could hear heavy bodies crashing back and forth along the main corridor. If they left the room now they risked being caught, and if they stayed here, it was only a matter of time before the Gnosis found them anyway. In the sudden stillness of her mind a thought surfaced, and she knew, as clearly as if someone had spoken the words, that she was going to die. Not at some distant time and place in the future but in this room, today, now. And it didn't matter. She would watch it happen from a million miles off, staring down into the room from somewhere far away in space; she was there already, watching her last moments from outside herself.

She would have laughed at the irony of it, if she had any feeling left. After surviving Miltia and devoting her career to studying the Gnosis, she would become another of their casualties, brushed off the edge of the world as if her entire life had amounted to nothing more than a few grains of salt dust, mingled with the salt of everyone else who died here.

Nephilim gripped her sleeve suddenly and Juli looked up, aware that the noise in the hallway had changed. She heard footsteps approaching the storage room, and then a crash as something seized the door and wrenched it away. Outside, silhouettes moved in the flickering light from the corridor. A human-sized figure stood framed and backlit in the doorway, its eyes casting a faint red glow that didn't so much penetrate the darkness as highlight its edges. Juli sensed the moment when its gaze, tracking evenly around the room, came to rest on her, and they both arrived at recognition at once.

"KOS-MOS?"

"Target identity confirmed. Dr. Juli Mizrahi, do you require assistance?"

KOS-MOS's steps clicked lightly on the tiled floor. Juli suddenly noticed that the hallway outside had fallen silent and the tremors in the building had ceased. Standing over Juli, KOS-MOS bent down to her and held out a hand.

"Is she in there, KOS-MOS?" Shion appeared in the doorway behind her, straining to see inside. "Is everything all right?"

"Affirmative, Shion." KOS-MOS helped Juli to her feet, and Juli held out her free hand to Nephilim as they emerged into the corridor. The dim light stung her eyes, and her legs felt rubbery. She wanted to sit down again.

"Oh, thank goodness," said Shion. "I was afraid we were too late. We headed out as soon as we got the distress call, but when we got here and saw what had happened ...." She took a sharp breath. "Well, I'm just glad you're all right. And the little girl, too, I see." Smiling, she bent down to Nephilim, who buried her face in Juli's overcoat. "Don't be scared, it's okay now! My name is Shion. What's yours?"

Juli swallowed, but her voice still came out dry. "What about the Gnosis? Are they--"

"Gone," said Jin from the far end of the hallway. "They all disappeared at once, as if on cue. It's just like the other attacks."

KOS-MOS nodded. "In addition, all abnormal waveform activity has ceased within this sector."

"By the way," said Shion, after she had given up trying to coax Nephilim out of her reticence, "has anyone seen MOMO and Ziggy? They were with us a few minutes ago."

Juli's mouth went dry again. "They're here?"

"Yes, we met up with them outside," said Jin. He glanced out into the main corridor as if he expected to see them arrive at any moment. "They got here just after we did. They must have gone a different way when we split up."

Her legs still felt shaky, and she closed her eyes and leaned against the wall and waited for the dizziness to subside. Why had they come here, after what she had done? After she had treated them like objects, pushed them away, lashed out at them in anger? Surely not because they still cared for her. And if they did, she didn't deserve it. She wanted to crawl back into the storage room and hide from them, hide her shame from the world.

"Shion, my sensors detect another life form approaching. Identity unknown, but it appears to be a non-organic humanoid."

"What?" Shion looked around frantically. "There's not supposed to be anyone else here. The building was evacuated."

Jin stepped back into a defensive stance, reaching for the hilt of his sword. "Dr. Mizrahi, Shion, stay back. KOS-MOS, come with me."

KOS-MOS turned to Shion, who nodded. "Go with him. But be careful."

"Affirmative." KOS-MOS followed Jin into the hallway, and Juli watched from around the corner, sheltering Nephilim against her, feeling the warmth of the small body and the fast beating of her heart. Juli's own heartbeat was slow. She didn't know why she felt so calm, except that she had nothing left to be afraid of.

KOS-MOS fell first. Juli saw her stagger backward and stand reeling for a few moments before her head sagged and her body crashed to the floor. Shion ran out after her, but the gray-clothed woman knocked her aside like a doll. Juli pushed Nephilim to the back of the corridor and stepped out in front of her as the woman rounded the corner, her heavy, deliberate strides echoing between the narrow walls.

"If you want her," said Juli, "you'll have to tear me to pieces first."

The gray-clothed woman drew her lips together in the slightest hint of a smile. "That won't be necessary."

Juli felt the impact before she understood what had happened. Lights flashed in her head as it struck the wall, and this time her legs really did collapse and she slid to the floor in a daze. The world darkened at its edges, and she lost track of how long she lay there, drifting in and out of consciousness, before she heard Jin asking Shion if she was all right, and then she got up and staggered out into the hallway.

KOS-MOS's battered frame lay sprawled in the middle of the floor, its limbs broken and twisted in odd directions. Juli stared at it without comprehension. She couldn't think straight because her head ached and she felt as though her skull had been shattered and clumsily patched back together, and every time she stared too hard at something her vision doubled. And she was exhausted. How long ago had she last slept? She couldn't remember. Shion walked over and asked her something about Nephilim, and she tried to answer, but her words came out slurred. Nephilim was gone; she didn't know why, or how.

"Mommy?"

She wondered if she had imagined the voice, and turned toward it half expecting to see no one. But she hadn't imagined it, and there was MOMO, climbing down from a collapsed section of wall at the end of the corridor. And now MOMO was running, stumbling on the shattered floor tiles, calling out to her, and Juli took a few hesitant steps forward until they stood facing each other, not quite close enough to touch.

"Are you okay?" said MOMO. "I was so worried."

Juli closed her eyes and took a deep breath, hoping it would settle her. The pain in her head had begun to subside, and her thoughts seemed clearer now. When she looked again, MOMO was still staring up at her, waiting for her answer. "I'll be all right," she said, and for once it felt close to the truth. "How have you been?"

"Oh ... I've been okay too, I guess." MOMO hunched her shoulders and stared down at the floor, prodding a cracked tile with the toe of her shoe. "Mommy, are you still mad at me? For what I said?"

She took another deep breath. "No, I'm not mad at you. I shouldn't have said what I said, either."

"Then ... did you really mean ...."

Juli glanced up towards the end of the hall, then quickly lowered her eyes. "MOMO, I said those things because I was upset. Sometimes people say things that they don't intend, just because they're confused and frustrated and they don't know what else to say. But that doesn't make it right. It was wrong of me, and I'm sorry." She swallowed, looked up, and mouthed the words again. I'm sorry.

From the far end of the corridor he stared back at her, his gaze piercing even at this distance. Then a pained expression crossed his face and he shut his eyes, and he didn't have to say the words in order for her to understand what he meant. I'm sorry too.