Kayla was…odd.

Barely fourteen years old and the child held the lives of thousands in her hands. That kinda did some mental tricks to a person’s psyche.

Then again, to have the mental power to run one of these engines, you had to be peculiar to start with.

Still, whatever happened I always approached Kayla with care-and always with the latest Spip Hop music pod and a large cola float.

Trust me, bribery can get you anywhere.

Then again, as I looked around at the mess I wondered. The passages leading to Kayla’s haunt were twisted. The Ylithium alloy walls, supposedly able to withstand a direct nuclear hit, gouged out with what looked like huge claws.

This, I realized didn’t look good.

I heard Kayla’s music, The Thraptors swinging away to the latest technochip which sounded, for want of a better word, like a rooster vomiting. I’ll never understand teenagers.

For a moment I thought Kayla wasn’t there. She was, in a semi-transparent sort of way.

“Contact,” she said. “Alien. Bad.”