​     Fathom felt it first while restocking the vitamin section in the pharmacy where she worked. A dozen customers milled around the huge lobby. Fathom's eyes locked with a portly woman in her fifties checking out the shampoos, and, with their eyes, they asked the same thing: Are you going to attack me?

     Fathom heard screeching tires from out on the street.

     She heard yelling.

​     She heard shrieks of terror.

​     And, with each shout, with each scream, the fear within Fathom intensified.

​     Then she heard a gunshot, and it felt like her heart was going to leap right out of her throat.

​     A pharmacist walked out of the room where all the drugs were locked away, his pockets stuffed with full bottles.

​     "Who needs a little something to calm themselves down?" he asked everyone in the store. "I've got what you need right here." As he spoke, he popped pills in his mouth like they were breath mints and he was on his way to the prom.

     Just about everyone in the lobby ran to take him up on his offer.

     Not Fathom, though.

​     I don't need no pills, she thought. I just need to get the Hell out of here.

​     She got as far as the sidewalk when some guy two heads taller than her got in Fathom's way. 

​     "We're all going to die!" he bellowed. "The end has come! There's no way out! Our final moments are at hand!" He pinned Fathom to his chest. "You stay with me! Only I can keep you safe!"

​     With one powerful, winter-coated arm pressed tight against her tits, he used his other hand to try and keep the lower half of her body still...

     and he did so by grabbing her by the twat.

     Men.

​     Fathom screamed and kicked at the guy's instep with her heel.

     He yowled, yet he still refused to release her.

​     A crowd formed, drawn by the struggle between the two of them.

​     "I'm taking her to where she can be protected!" he yelled. "Why can't you all see that? Why isn't that obvious to all of you? I'm not a predator! I'm here to ​protect her from predators! I'm...Gawk!"

​     He stopped talking then because he was too busy choking. 

     It was like someone had kicked him in the throat.

     In fact, someone had done exactly that.

     Niki, of course, still invisible, had arrived on the scene at last.

​     And still utilizing her anti-grav sneakers.

​     She twisted again to deliver a haymaker to his jaw.

​     Two bloody teeth popped from his mouth as his whole body flew back to slap onto the sidewalk.

     "Hi," Niki said, and she appeared before Fathom's eyes.

     Now Fathom ​really screamed.

     "No!" Niki shouted. "No, Fathom! There's nothing to be afraid of! It's me! It's Niki! Remember me from last year? Remember I..."

     "Demon!" Fathom shouted.

​     The crowd around them thickened. Seatrailia was a coastal, port city, so there was plenty of ethnic diversity in the population. Niki looked around her and saw people of every color, age, and gender.

     For the moment, they all shared only one thing:

​     They were all frightened.

​     Niki felt it too, even though she knew that, in fact, Egoneg was behind it all and that as soon as she killed him it would end. Now, though, fear coursed through her veins, fear that could so easily escalate into panic.

     And, here she was, floating in mid-air in high tops.

     Of course she seemed like a demon to them.

​     But to ​Fathom? Even Fathom thought she was a demon?

     So, along with the fear Niki felt, she also felt the crushing emotional weight of​ sudden loss and heartbreak. Niki'd just been through a grueling training year in a totally alien environment with only Trevor as a companion, and the only thing that got her through all of that without going bonkers or getting rock bottom depressed was the thought, the fantasy really, that when she got back to Earth she'd be able to reconnect with Fathom, a woman she'd spent a single night with but knew to the marrow of her bones to be the love of her life.

     And now that "love of her life" saw Niki as a monster that Fathom would most certainly kill if she had any sort of weapon on her.

     And that hurt.

     That hurt so powerfully and so abruptly that Niki faltered for a second like she'd taken a physical blow. 

     A mistake.

​     A chunk of cement the size of a soccer ball hit Niki's skull with such force that it knocked her out and dropped her to the sidewalk just like that.

     The surrounding crowd converged on her, Fathom included.

     They had every intention of tearing the demon Niki Creole to pieces, because they suddenly and absolutely felt so fucking afraid. 

​END OF CHAPTER FOUR

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