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turned her head up. No light reached her, but she could sense the surface five miles overhead. The ocean was empty. The faintest echoes of souls crossing above sometimes reached her, but few caught her interest. Now, something nagged.
    The feeling was broad and unspecific. She wasn’t tugged to any single part of the world, only up.
    Toward the surface.
    Toward the sky above and what lay beyond.
    They’re coming, Endo said.
    She understood the voice, but did not communicate in the same way. While the voice known as Katsu Endo ‘spoke,’ the part of her that was Nemesis, felt. The words held no meaning—until he revealed it.
    The memory came back in a flash, bringing a kind of burning pain with it.
    Her creators.
    Her tormentors.
    She felt a burning hatred for a kind of being no longer wholly present in the world, but diffused in the creatures—
    Humans, Endo said, and with the word came understanding that the beings she had been sent to destroy had comingled with humanity, merging species.
    Her creators sent her here to destroy the non-human species. Flashes of violence played before her eyes, clear in the underwater darkness. A ringed city in flames. And then pain. Violence. A hated foe. Then nothing.
    The memories weren’t hers. The voice said so, and she understood. They belonged to another. The one who came before her, like the one who came before Endo. He called the old one ‘Prime.’ Nemesis Prime . The memory of that old self was ancient, but the feeling was growing stronger.
    Endo focused her attention, slowing her massive heart before any men listening could hear it. Her creators were coming, but the pull on her psyche was bigger than that. One of her—of Prime’s —targets of vengeance had returned to this planet. Not on the surface, or in the waters, but near. As were another kind of being, whose thirst for vengeance matched her own. Forces were gathering beyond the gaze of humanity, but not beyond the reach of her senses. She could feel them. Their anger. Their hatred. But not their intentions. Not yet.
    She rose toward the surface, slipping from the frigid layer of water along the trench’s lowest levels and into the warmer tropical temperatures above. She rose slowly, reaching out. Feeling.
    Voices enveloped her, screaming for attention. For aid. For blood. Her heart swelled again. Her tail snapped in agitation, propelling her higher. But she was subdued once more by the voice of Endo.
    Focus.
    But she couldn’t. Thousands of voices became millions.
    Millions became billions.
    All of them at once. A raw tidal wave that would have once propelled her to a frenzy, damning all those who stood in her path as she sought to silence the world.
    Focus!
    The voice directed her away from the chaos. Amidst the noise, close and distant was a rising feeling in her gut. Something was getting closer, a force that felt new, but familiar. She tuned out the humans, her ancient enemies and her creators, and she flinched in surprise.
    She felt...herself. But not precisely. She felt her other selves. And two new selves. The others were already here. Quiet. Dormant. Docile. But the new selves burned with a hunger and loathing matched only by the Prime.
    An ancient word returned to her mind, pronounced by the new voice: Gerstorumque.
    The word felt like herself. Her identity. But Endo denied it. Raged against it. You are a slave to no creature, he said. Prime was Gerstorumque. You are more. You... we ...are Nemesis.
    Separation from her past returned her focus. She could sense them coming, their arrival imminent, together but separate. One would arrive at a place Endo once called home. The other would arrive on the other side of the planet, at a place the former voice had called home. She felt torn by mixed allegiances, but was surprised when Endo’s thoughts agreed with her own. Their home...their family...the only people in the world either of them cared about, would soon be in grave danger.
    Water swirled around the