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at him from the depths of her ugly glasses.
    “But it’s not like I can do anything about it!” Artho said.
    “Do you wanna?” She was shrugging out of her Spider-Man knapsack.
    He turned so he could scowl at her face straight on. “Shit, girl, what d’you think? Yes!”
    Tamara giggled. Fuck, why was he talking to a kid this way? He started slamming pens and pencils around on the desk.
    “Well, change things, then!” the child squealed. She lunged at Artho and swung her Spider-Man knapsack right at his forehead.
    It was like slo-mo; Artho could see the oddly muscular bulge of her lats powering the swing, almost had time to wonder how
     a seven-year-old could be that built, then he had barely focused on the red and black image of Spidey coming for him, reaching
     for him, when
bang,
the knapsack connected and something exploded inside Artho’s skull.
    Tamara yelled. Artho shouted, tried to reach for the kid through the stars flaring behind his eyes. Jesus, felt like a bag
     of bones the damned child had in there. “Shit, shit, shit,” Artho moaned, holding his aching head. He dimly saw the child
     slither out of Tamara’s grasp and run, no, glide out of the room on those skin-and-boneless legs. She had a big butt, too,
     that child; as she ran, it worked under her little plaid skirt like that of someone three times her size.
    “Artho, you okay? I’m calling security.”
    He paid Tamara no mind. He was dizzy. He put his head down between his knees. It was wet, his forehead was
wet
where he was holding it. He was bleeding! Damned girl. He took his hand away, raised his head enough to inspect it.
    “Yeah, Muhammed? Can you come up to Tri-Ex Media on 17? We got a little girl loose on this floor. No, don’t know where she
     came from. Look, she just hit Artho, okay? I think he’s hurt. Yes, a kid did it, she’s little, maybe six, seven. Little black
     girl, school uniform, thick glasses. Says her parents aren’t with her. Okay. Okay.” She hung up. “He’s coming.”
    There was no blood. At least, the stuff leaking out of him didn’t look like blood. The liquid on his hand seemed to glow one
     minute and go milky the next, like a smear of syrup. “What is this shit?”
    “Here, let me see.” Tamara crouched down by him like she had by the little girl. Nancy. That’s what her dad had called her.
     What kind of dad let his young kid roam around loose like that?
    Tamara frowned. “Yeah, you’re cut, but there’s this weird… stuff coming out. Oh. Never mind, it’s stopped now. How d’you feel,
     Artho?”
    “What the hell was in that knapsack? Where’d she go?”
    “I’ll go see.” Tamara jumped up, left the office.
    Artho’s head was clearing. It didn’t hurt so much now. He touched where the cut was, couldn’t feel one. The goop was still
     on his fingers, though. He rubbed the fingers together to smear the stuff away. His fingers kind of tingled.
    But really, he felt a lot better now. He chuckled a little, thinking of the comic books he’d read as a kid. He’d been bitten
     by an overactive spider.
    His computer pinged to tell him that it was done rendering. Shit. Had to get that stuff done tonight, or Charlie’d have his
     head. He moved back to his terminal to upload Tit for Twat. He reached for the mouse. He clicked on it, and the click felt
     like it traveled all the way through his arm. No, like it had come
from
his arm, down through his hand, to the mouse. Weird.
    Tamara came back. “Found a little girl with her dad in the elevator. Could have been her. Looked a little bit like her, I
     guess. I mean, I can’t tell, you know, they all look… I mean…” She stopped, blushing.
    They all look alike.
The superintendent of Artho’s apartment building always mixed him up with Patrice who lived on the 27th floor, never mind
     that Patrice was dark café cru to Artho’s caramel, was balding, had arms like thighs, and spoke with a strong French accent.
     Tamara had always been nice