The man in the black suit tucked away the glowing piece of parchment and said, “Thank you, Ms. Staggers. Now that you have sworn the oath, you will need to report for training at building B on Monday. You are lucky, most newly classed have to wait a month or two before they can get training.”

  “Thanks, I guess,” Vanessa said.

  The man in black was an agent of SPEAR and his mana detector had gone off when Vanessa walked through the portal. Unlike Luke and Bumblebee, her class was always active and was easy to detect. She had to swear the same modified oath to the secret government agency in order to keep going through the portal. She readily agreed, having been warned by Luke earlier.

  Once their business with the agent was over, Luke and Vanessa clomped back to the company warehouse. She was quiet for most of the walk.

  When they were almost there she said, “Can you feel it?”

  “Feel what?”

  “The oath. I think I can feel it, like threads around my heart.”

  “That’s a good way to describe it. Yeah I can feel the oath, particularly when I think about breaking it. It feels like the threads are contracting, about to cut me apart.”

  She pointed at him, “Exactly! It feels so invasive. Why didn’t you warn me?”

  “I thought I did. Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough.”

  “Maybe you did, I don’t know. It’s different than I thought it would be. The way you talked I assumed it was a promise backed by magic. This feels like... I don’t know, a monkey on my back with a knife.”

  Luke chuckled, “Yeah. At least it’s a stupid monkey. Intent doesn’t matter. The oath doesn’t care what you are thinking, only exactly what you do. You can get around it.”

  “I don’t want to get around it. I want it gone. Do you think there is some anti-oath magic on Kalibutan?”

  Luke reached over and pulled her into a hug. “A woman after my own heart. Not even a half hour after you swear an oath, you are already thinking of ways to get out of it.”

  “I’m fine working with SPEAR. It’s the oath that I don’t like.”

  “Trust me, I get it. I’ve been thinking about it off and on. There has to be some way to break the oath, but the only ones that would know are on Kalibutan. My first thought was to ask Kruro, she likes us. But I think after what she said today about her loyalty, we shouldn’t even bring up oaths around her. The Seer Theobaldine almost certainly knows how to get rid of the oath, he’s just that kind of slimy guy. But for those same reasons, I don’t trust that dwarf.”

  “Totally. My gut says steer clear from him.”

  “I think our best bet is Cormac. I think he knows how to get around the oath. He’s lying to Lord Edobar about his class core working, so that’s a hint he might have broken his oath. Also, he was supposed to make us swear an oath when we started working for him, and he didn’t. I thought at first he just forgot, but it might have been intentional.

  “But I haven’t brought it up with him yet because what if he really is loyal to Lord Edobar? If he really did just forget to swear me in and I remind him, he won’t let me leave without swearing an oath. Then I will have two oaths on me, not just the one.”

  Vanessa clapped her gauntlet on his pauldron. “Yolo. I say you do it.”

  “Yolo? Do people still say that?”

  “Of course they do. I said it. Just now,” she said with a smile in her voice.

  Luke laughed and said, “I should totally tickle you for that. I think we need to get you out of that mech.”

  “Oh, really, Mr. Moore? You want me to undress so you can get your hands all over me?”

  “Now I do. Come on, I think there’s a couch in the office.”

  She slipped out of his arms with the sound of metal on metal. “No, no. You aren’t distracting me like that. We can try out the couch after you inscribe some elemental runes for me.”

  “Well then, what are we standing around out here for? I have some inscribing to do.”

  ???

  Luke closed up his mech’s gauntlet and sighed with satisfaction. Now that he could use Machine Bond on his prosthetic leg, he had his War Machine buffs always active. Inscribing runes was easier than it had ever been before. He had blazed through creating four different runes for Vanessa to use for her Power Juggling practice. She said she had already gained four levels in the skill.

  Since the warehouse wasn't empty, they decided against getting amorous. Vanessa practiced and he worked on his mech. He made improvements with the Adept Mana Containment rune, not only improving the efficiency of his mech, but also improving his four spell rifles. He couldn’t wait to test it out. Vanessa was using a piece of sheet metal in the back of the warehouse for target practice, but he would have to wait until he got back to Kalibutan to try things out. His spells were too powerful and that was before he charged them up.

  “Hey, Luke, you got a minute?” Allen asked.

  “For you, buddy? I got all the time in the world.”

  “Great, ‘cus I have a few company things I want to talk about,” Allen said and flipped his laptop around.

  “Oh, wait. I just remembered, I gotta do this thing. You know, the thing with the thing. It’s very important. I’ve got to go now,” Luke said and got up to go.

  “Har har. Sit your butt down. We got important shit to discuss,” Allen said. “First off, All of our new hires passed their security clearance. I let them know we moved their first day to Wednesday instead of Monday. No one seemed upset.”

  “Thanks for that. It’s gonna be tough teaching them without Shepard and his crew, but I think we will be better off without them.”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Speaking of which, I paid their bonus and a full week’s pay. That dug into our cash reserves.”

  “Good thing I literally handed you 53 new mana cores. That should help with the money woes, right?”

  “Well, yes. But that’s what this chart is for,” Allen said and pointed at the laptop screen. “The demand for tier one mana cores is going down. We are flooding the market. I’m going to slow down our sales so we can keep the price high.”

  “Is cashflow going to be a problem?”

  “Not yet, no. Most new companies are deep in the red at this point and we have no debt and a few hundred grand in the bank. I’m just bringing it up so you know to focus on higher tier monsters. The demand for the larger monster cores is still strong, so that’s where we need to focus our efforts.”

  Luke nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind. We can’t always choose which monster we want to fight, but when we can, I’ll take on the big ones.”

  “Thanks. And we should reconsider the bonus for more than ten cores. It’s a huge expense and I feel like Shepard and team were just quitting after they hit ten.”

  “I’ll think about it. But an extra motivator might be necessary for newbies, you know, to keep them motivated.” Luke said. “Anyway anything else you wanted to talk about?”

  “Tomorrow’s Sunday and I think we should take it off. You have that mysterious thing you have to do on Monday and Tuesday, so maybe give yourself a break first?”

  “Sure. No one works tomorrow. Do you want to get dinner at Grey Rock?”

  “Hell yeah, I love that place. You should bring Vanessa. I want to get to know her now that she’s your girlfriend and our employee.”

  “You bet. I’ll invite Bumblebee and Sandwich too, it’ll be fun. Also, we can put the dinner on the company card. It’s a team building experience.”

  Allen laughed and agreed.

  The next morning started at 6AM as usual, but unlike a normal day, Jinx wasn’t in his face. Instead, Luke was woken up by the sound of clattering tin cans in the kitchen. He patted the bed where he had left his cat, but she wasn’t there. She wasn’t in the room at all.

  He carefully walked into the kitchen and saw a beautifully terrible sight. Jinx had fully regrown her legs in the night. She was whole once more. But her accelerated healing must have left her hungry. She had opened the cupboard that held the stacks of canned cat food and knocked over a half dozen of them.

  As he watched, her front claws glowed and she swiped across the top of a can. The lid flew off and splatted on the tile. Jinx started munching away happily.

  This was horrible news. His cat could get into the food at any time she wanted. Nothing was safe from her now that she had her spectral class.

  “Jinx, if you eat everything in the apartment, I’m going to have to stop keeping food here. You don’t want that, do you?”

  She ignored him and kept eating. Luke decided to let her eat as much as she wanted today. Maybe she needed it after the healing. But he needed to get that artifact the Seer had talked about. Once he could bond with Jinx, they could talk to each other and maybe he could get her to see reason. Maybe.

  ???

  “Yo, Luke. I get that we are in Colorado. But did you have to pick the most white-ass sports bar in existence?” Bumblebee said and sat down. He had a point, he was the only black guy in the restaurant.

  “Hey, I like this place,” Allen said.

  Bumblebee plopped down on the last open seat and said, “I had no idea you were so basic, Allen.”

  Allen frowned but Luke put a hand on his shoulder before he could say anything. Luke said, “You get to pick the restaurant for the next company lunch, Bumblebee. We’ll judge your taste in restaurants next.”

  Bumblebee looked surprised and Allen grinned. Luke was already looking forward to their next meeting.

  “Sooo, Luke said there was a story behind your nickname, Sandwich. But he didn’t know it,” Vanessa said and put her chin on her fist. “Tell me all about it.”

  Sandwich ran his hands through his long blond hair. “That’s a boring story. Lemme tell you about Bumblebee. This kid’s insane. He’s out there risking his life, fighting monsters all the time, you’d think he was badass. Nope. When we have downtime, he watches kids cartoons. His nickname’s from Transformers. You know, the yellow car?”

  “He’s more than that. He’s yellow with black accents and has the best drip out of everyone. Optimus Prime’s the leader, but Bumblebee’s the heart of Transformers. Without a heart you die,” Bumblebee said and nodded sagely.

  Sandwich laughed. “Dude. It’s a kids cartoon. Don’t act like it’s all deep.”

  Bumblebee quietly swore and said, “It’s deep. Just because you don’t get it, doesn’t mean you can shit on it. But you are just trying to distract everyone. Don’t think I forgot about your nickname. I bet everyone wants to hear all about it.”

  Sandwich was suddenly uncomfortable. “The Transformer Bumblebee is mute, right? Why don’t you act like your hero and shut up?”

  Bumblebee laughed and slapped the table. “Hell no. You poked the bear, now you get the storm.”

  “That’s not a saying.”

  Bumblebee ignored him and turned to Vanessa. “This was before I was on the job, but the second week Sandwich was on Kalibutan he forgot lunch. He got hungry.”

  Sandwich groaned and covered his face.

  “So he gets his first paycheck from Elwood Staffing. He’s amped. The crew at the time convinces him that it’s tradition to buy everyone dinner with your first paycheck.”

  Vanessa smiled. “I take it that’s not actually tradition?”

  “No, it’s cap. But that’s not even the funny part. Ellen, she was Degenerate later but at the time she was Ellen, convinced him to take the crew to Bistro Nautile, it’s this bougie French restaurant where all the menus are in French." Bumblebee's grin widened as he talked. “It must have been hilarious to see these dirty-ass chumps walk into a high class joint like that in their cheugy outfits. But it gets better! Ellen knew French, and she told the boys how to order expensive seafood beforehand. Mike, that’s Sandwich’s real name, didn’t get any help. He heard everybody order in French, they’re fluent as far as he knows. Then everyone turns to him and stares him down. He just picks something from the middle of the menu and says he’ll have that. The waiter tries to help him, but he just confidently says ‘No, I’m sure I want a Jambon-Beurre’.”

  Sandwich groaned again but didn’t look up. “It was a mistake, ok? Let it go.”

  Bumblebee ignored him and and leaned forward, gesturing with his hands. “The food comes a little later. Lobster over here, Clam bake over there, Seabass over there. Last comes Mike’s dish.” He paused for effect then said, “It was a ham and butter sandwich on a baguette.” He laughed and slapped the table. “This man paid a few hundred dollars and all he got was a sandwich.”

  The table laughed, except Sandwich himself. He grumbled and muttered, “It was a pretty good sandwich though.” When the laughing continued, he added, “I got them back later.”

  Vanessa said, “Do tell. Did you ever get Bumblebee?”

  Sandwich brightened. “I did!”

  They continued to talk about pranks they pulled on each other for the rest of the afternoon. When the waiter came, Sandwich ordered a steak, and Vanessa couldn’t help but suggest a steak sandwich instead.

  After lunch, Luke made sure to send a letter to the inner runewight. She was expecting him today and he wouldn’t be there. Allen had been right, they all needed the day off. Luke's letter mentioned that he wouldn’t be there the next Kalibutan day either. The training SPEAR was giving them would take a few Earth days.

  The next morning the four of them with classes met on the ground floor of Building B of Norfolk Complex. They were led to a large warehouse connected to the backside of the portal building. It was mostly empty, only Agent Brown and a new guy stood in the cavernous room.

  Luke had plenty of time to examine the strange assemblages of items stacked along the periphery of the room. Over there were four wheelers, mopeds, scooters, and tricycles. A dozen leather dummies stood next to a dozen more steel ones. Three different sizes of trampolines were stacked against a nearby wall. Other random objects were ignored by the strange sight on the back wall.

  On the wall closest to where the portal would be were a row of cages. Most of them were empty, but two held live monsters.