Bosa sat down heavily in one of the padded chairs. She looked out the window and took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I usually don’t tell people my personal business, but I feel like you have a right to know. As long as you keep it to yourself.”

  “I can keep a secret, but you don’t have to tell me anything you aren’t comfortable with.”

  “No, if we are going to be traveling and working together for weeks, you should know why I like you, but not your body,” Bosa said. She turned and looked at him. “You are the spitting image of what I used to look like. Face, body, everything.” She gestured to herself. “I much prefer my new body and I don’t like being reminded of the old one. I’m sorry I’ve been acting weird around you because of it.”

  Luke sat up fully and gave her a serious look. Was she saying she used to be a guy? That’s a huge transformation. Agent Brown said they used magic, but he had no idea that there were magic sex change potions available. He immediately had questions, but realized that she was probably sensitive about it since she didn’t mention it before.

  Luke said, “Thanks for trusting me with that info. I promise to keep your secret.” Then he stopped himself from saying more.

  “I can see you biting your tongue. I didn’t think people literally did that. You can ask me whatever you want. Seriously.” Bosa said with a smile.

  “Ok good, because I have a lot of questions,” Luke said and leaned forward. “So, you used to be a human guy, one that looked like me, and you got transformed into a female elf, right?”

  “Right.”

  “How? Did you do a lot of surgeries first, and then magic up the rest? And was it somebody’s skill or a potion?”

  “It was actually just one potion. I took it and five days later I looked like this. SPEAR has a few alchemists and they got ahold of a vanity potion. It’s just supposed to make elves look prettier, but they adjusted it to turn humans into elves so they could create spies.”

  “That’s so wild. Do you think they could adjust the potion to turn you into a human woman after you are done being a spy?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. The alchemists are working on it. It doesn’t matter though. I couldn’t afford it if they did. The potion that did this cost two million bucks,” she said and gestured to her body.

  “Wow. That’s expensive. Although I bet it would cost three times as much to turn a woman into a man.”

  She tilted her head to the side. “Did you just make a six million dollar man joke? That reference was old when my dad was young.”

  Luke grinned widely and shrugged. “You still got it though, two million dollar woman.”

  Bosa rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

  There was a short pause and then another question popped into Luke’s head. “Do you consider yourself trans? You aren’t genetically male now, right? You are a reborn elf, female through and through.”

  She tilted her head back and forth. “That term is a loaded one, it means different things to different people. Some people claim it as their own, but not me. I hate that it’s become a political boogeyman. I’m a woman, I’ve never called myself trans, even when my genetics didn’t agree with me. Then or now, my gender was always just a part of my identity anyway. I’m a good friend, a musician, a Lord of the Rings superfan, and bug collector.”

  “And spy too, right?”

  “For now, yes.”

  “Just for now? You’re not the next Jane Bond?”

  She smiled slightly at the dumb joke. “No, I’ve never really wanted to be a spy, even though I do have some talent with it. I agreed to be on this mission to pay SPEAR back for the potion.”

  “They made you pay for it? Aren’t they supposed to pay you?” Luke frowned.

  She tilted her hand back and forth. “It was part of the negotiations we went through to get them to give me the potion instead of someone else. I really wanted the magic transformation and had to convince them. I have to do this one mission, and maybe one more later, and then my life is my own.”

  “What is your mission, by the way? Am I supposed to help you out somehow?”

  She sliced her hands down and then realized what she was doing and then shook her head. “You don’t have to do anything. I’ll play the part of a domestic servant until you get your inheritance or whatever it is you are doing. Then when my identity is fully established, I’ll pretend I don’t like working for a human and go looking for a new job. That should give me an excuse to infiltrate key organizations in the capital. If I’m successful I’ll stay on for a few months and then come back home. If no one wants to hire me, I’ll steal some intelligence and come home with you.”

  “Cool, cool. Hey, let me know if you do get a job. I don’t want to leave the capital if you get caught or whatever.”

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  She smiled and said, “Thanks. I’ll let you know.”

  “Oh! One more question. Do you have any cool spy gear?”

  “No, nothing cool. I have the communication device, a smaller version of your brick. And I have a few cameras that use film, so they work even if mana fries our tech.”

  “What? That’s it? SPEAR’s Q had to give you something else. What about a laser watch or cigarette missile? Did they at least give you shoes with knives that pop out?”

  She shook her head and giggled. “No, I asked about that too. They said the fewer spy gadgets I have, the less likely I am to be caught.”

  “Boo. That’s boring. What’s the point of being a cool spy if you don’t get awesome gadgets?”

  She nodded in agreement and said, “Sadly, real spies are more about being in the right place at the right time than cool gadgets and seducing women.”

  “Have you done spy work before?”

  She tilted her hand back and forth. “Kinda sorta.”

  “You’re gonna have to tell me more than that,”

  “Maybe another time,” Bosa said and stood back up. “I really do need to use the facilities and head to bed.”

  Luke nodded and looked out the window. The sun had set a while ago, but he wasn’t tired. He had already slept eight hours earlier in the Kalibutan day. The natives, and Bosa, would be sleeping for sixteen hours, but he wasn’t tired yet. He went back to practicing his three skills, focusing on being efficient and getting the most out of every drop of mana.

  The hours slowly slid by. Although he felt like he was getting better at this, he didn't level up again. Maybe he had gotten all the easy levels, or maybe he needed to try something new.

  The communication device near the outside door flipped flags, near silently. Luke walked over to see a new pattern there, different than the one calling them to dinner. He picked up the small booklet hanging below the hexagon and flipped through the patterns. It was one he should have recognized. The train was being attacked and they could help, if they wanted.

  Luke smiled and quickly suited up in his smaller mech. He walked to the door and paused. Cormac was right. He didn’t actually need to leave his cabin to fight monsters.

  He turned and checked the left window. It was dark, no moons were out tonight. Only the reflected light of the planet’s rings revealed the landscape outside. Luke’s superior Perception didn’t reveal any monsters, only writhing bushes and sparse trees. He went to the other window and saw the reason for the notice. There were two large monsters, probably titans, stomping towards the train. They were very different from each other, but both towered over the nearby trees.

  One was a slim and spindly thing, with four spear-like legs and a torso with many jointed arms. He decided to name it a Slenderman Centaur. The other monster was the opposite of a cyclops. It had bark like skin and two legs and two arms and a head atop that torso. Instead of one eye, it had well over a dozen huge ones taking up most of its head. Both titans were bleeding, black blood dripping off their frame. Luke guessed they had been fighting before the train came along and presented a new enemy.

  Luke fired one Vortex Door at his feet and aimed the second half at the ground where the Manyclops was about to step. The portal snapped to the window instead. Apparently, his skill couldn’t go through glass. He dismissed the skill and rolled his eyes. It looked like he was going outside anyway.

  He climbed atop the train roof and was unsurprised to see that almost no one else was up there with him. The roofs nearby were empty except for him, and there were only a few train employees atop the other train cars behind him. Hopefully Luke could take these titans out without summoning a tank. The only thing the aristocrats would hate more than him hogging all the monsters, would be him waking them up with cannon fire.

  The Manyclops was closer, so Luke focused on that one first. He fired a Vortex Door at the train roof and its pair where the titan was about to step. This time the portal formed as he expected.

  His arsenal in the slim suit of power armor was much more limited than his regular full-sized set. His right arm held a plasma cannon that took three seconds to charge, his left held a lightning bolt spell rifle, and he had an Ice Baton stored at his hip. His class skills of Phantom Shot and Summon Vehicle were his main damage dealers, but he couldn’t use them for different reasons.

  Just before the Manyclops’ foot hit his portal, Luke fired lightning balls through it. Spell after spell hit the titan’s foot, spreading lightning magic across his skin. A second later, the enormous foot came down atop the portal and dismissed it.

  The titan stumbled slightly at the unexpected pain, but then caught itself and kept striding forward. Luke tsked to himself. He couldn't even make it fall down with five shots from the spell rifle. He would have to try something else.

  While he thought about it, he started charging his plasma cannon. This would be a lot easier if he could place his portals midair, or even atop the monster’s skin. Vortex Door didn’t work that way though. Not yet anyway. He had high hopes for it after he leveled it up some more.

  For today, Luke decided to skip the portals and aimed his plasma shot directly at the monster and fired it across hundreds of yards towards the monster. The titan’s many eyes caught the bright light coming its way and twisted out of the way. Luke’s jaw dropped. The Manyclops was huge, it shouldn’t be able to move that quickly.

  The other train defenders sprung into action then, taking advantage of the monster’s distraction. One of them threw a large clay pot, streaking through the air in a long arc. Another employee started dancing and the dust and dirt around the two titans started swirling up, partially blinding them. The final Chosen atop the train worked with the second. He made acid drops appear like rain above the two titans. The wind blew them all towards the monster’s heads, further injuring and distracting them.

  The clay pot arrived, but even with the distractions, the Manyclops was able to see it coming and leaned out of the way. When the projectile was about to miss, a surge of magic made it explode instead. Red dust joined the swirling dirt around the monster’s head. The titan screamed in pain as soon as the dust touched its skin. It fell to its knees and tried to wipe the dust off its eyes.

  Luke shifted his attention to the other titan. The Slenderman Centaur overtook the writhing monster and sped up, racing ahead of the dust and debris the Wind Chosen had thrown up.

  While the others were focusing on the Manyclops, Luke had been coming up with a strategy for the other titan. He grinned when the spindly centaur sped up. That would only make this easier. He flexed his Acuity to slow down his perception of time and put his plan into action.