“You live here?” Kelly said, as the vehicle cleared the last security gate.

  Dr. Haider’s place was a modern mansion. It sat suspiciously close to the massive, federally-funded Skyward Spire—that raised-ground, tower structure reaching up to permanently puncture the sky. The neighborhood screamed money. More money than her bolt-hole, and way more money than the Mist Market where she’d almost been turned into chunky salsa that morning.

  The whole district was artificially elevated land, a designed plateau of privilege. Interspersed aesthetic living towers—luxury needles of glass and composite—rose from the plateau, looking down on the lower city districts the way stars might look down on a garbage fire, if stars were smug and charged HOA fees. The class stratification had never been clearer. It was a visual diagram of wealth, with altitude serving as the unit of measurement.

  Her host’s place wasn’t quite a home.

  It was a modern, multi-floor mansion with an incredible view of New York and the madness currently using it as a chew toy. Armed guards in corporate tactical gear patrolled a perimeter ringed with fences that looked decorative but were definitely rated to stop a light vehicle. There was a pool built right to the edge of the hill, a tennis court, and the whole thing was colored in rich warm whites and sepia tones. The place managed to look both understated and disgustingly fashionable.

  She had only ever been to one of his houses in her youth. It had been much smaller.

  Illegal work, apparently, paid extremely well.

  They all climbed out of her truck. Some automated luxury valet system she hadn't authorized took control of the vehicle, guiding it smoothly toward the building’s underground garage. It was a stupid display of money. Dr. Haider took the moment to get Reggie and his two goons to place their guns on a nearby ornamental bench. He had them switch off the remotely piloted droid standing beside her.

  Kelly watched the humanoid remote unit—the one with the screen showing Dr. Haider’s face—power down completely. It went still as a store mannequin.

  Then the front door of the mansion opened. The real Dr. Haider walked out to meet them in person.

  He was wearing an ankle monitor. The thick, government-issue band was clearly visible above his shoe. He didn’t seem worried about meeting them. He also didn’t seem worried about the winged, screeching things occasionally diving at the energy shield over his property. He just stood there on his expensive doorstep, a man under house arrest, welcoming guests to his party while the world tried to eat itself outside his fence.

  He looked surprisingly young for someone his age. Kelly remembered him with gray hair and deep wrinkles when she was eleven; now his hair was dark, his face smooth, his frame solid—thanks to pricey rejuvenation tech. She’d watched the change happen over the years. It was just another perk of his overstuffed bank account.

  She looked away from him, scanning the grounds. A perimeter guard opened fire on a pack of overgrown wolves the size of large cars. They howled and scattered, the bullets impacting around them and smacking into their hides. The rounds beat them back, but didn’t punch through. Their fur must have been denser than it looked.

  I guess crime really does pay, she thought while whistling, watching the creatures retreat.

  "I see you have a dog problem," Kelly said, nodding at the perimeter as he finally reached them. "I've been there. My dog used to chase people on a bike a lot. It got so bad, I finally had to take his bike away."

  Reggie gave her a strange look.

  She watched the next volley of gunfire send the creatures yelping into the decorative shrubbery. "That's animal abuse, you know. I should call PETA." She tilted her head, observing the retreating forms. "Hmm. They're kinda cute. You think I could tame one?"

  “The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals does not have jurisdiction here,” Dr. Haider said, his tone factual. “And no, you cannot domesticate a class-three invasive predator. Their neurochemistry is incompatible with prolonged human contact. Without alteration, they would attempt to eat you.”

  Dr. Haider gave a small, warm smile. “Considering our history, my inviting you to visit my organization was long overdue.” He gestured toward the grand entrance. “Please, come inside.”

  Reggie and his two guys were already walking past, heading for the door. They gave her encouraging, weirdly genuine smiles. “Come on,” one of them said.

  “No shoes, work gear, or guns inside the main residence,” Dr. Haider added, his tone leaving no room for argument. “House rules.”

  “No guns? No pierce-proof vest?” Kelly replied, stopping at the threshold. “I must warn you, my entire ability to transcend time is architecturally dependent on me being well-dressed. It’s a literal mechanical requirement. You take my shoes, you’re basically grounding a plane.”

  She removed them with visible reluctance. “I feel significantly less immortal without my gun and my good boots,” Kelly said. “I feel dramatically unsafe.”

  “Kelly,” Dr. Joe Haider chuckled, then addressed her without preamble. “Luigi sent my brokers the footage. I saw you thrash a magical creature that was also a new form of mutant, with your fists.”

  Damn Luigi and his big mouth. Kelly crossed her arms, her thunder thoroughly stolen. Next time she’d let it trash his store a little before she killed it with guns, like a normie.

  “Really? You saw that?” Kelly complained as she removed her lab coat—and the four guns strapped inside its folds—tossing them into the weapon tray in a way that caused them to land in a perfect stack. “Through the mist? But the feed resolution down there is complete garbage!”

  “Yes, I requested the footage after you mentioned the incident this morning. It caused a significant stir with my contacts. The video made negotiating on your behalf considerably easier.” Dr. Joe Haider opened the foyer door, inviting his fellow scientist inside his home. Or organization. Kelly wasn't sure which, but the vibe was leaning toward a very comfortable corporate annex.

  “As far as everyone is concerned,” he continued, “you’re a nobody intern who used the planetary crisis to get ahead. A rare few fortunately located individuals tend to do that. No offense.”

  The door led to a large living area that could have swallowed her entire two-room apartment, kitchen included. There was a sofa facing a massive plasma screen, a fireplace with a thick furred carpet in front of it, and stairs led to rooms above. Huge picture windows provided a marvelous view of the city being eaten alive below. The decor was a confusing, lavish mix. It had the cozy feel of a family-run hotel crossed with the sterile, expensive gleam of a corporate retreat designed by wealthy eccentrics who believed in beanbag chairs and original art. It looked like the set for a reality show about friendly cult leaders.

  Three people were already in the room. A man with dreadlocks wearing a smart casual t-shirt, slacks, and loafers. A woman. Another guy with a cigarette doing something indeterminate.

  Kelly didn't pay them much attention. Her gaze zeroed in on something else.

  Specifically, a disembodied head resting on a lounge couch. The head was positioned beside what looked suspiciously like an alien portal magic wolf cub—a small, monstrous creature with too many eyes and fur that seemed lush, thick, and impact resistant. The disembodied head was talking to the wolf cub in that high-pitched voice people use for babies and chihuahuas.

  "Who's a good little dimensional terror? You are! Yes, you are!"

  The head was directing this at the monster.

  The immortal scientist smiled at the pair. The disembodied head spotted her and smiled back. The overgrown wolf cub wagged its spiked furry tail in response.

  Aww.

  The head slowly rose as a mass of nanoswarms that looked like metallic liquid droplets formed beneath it, quickly coalescing into a liquid body as it rose fully from the couch to become a complete and utterly convincing female, walking towards them.

  Probably his assistant?

  “Hi, Dad.” The girl waved at Dr. haider, while she bent down to pick up the pet magical portal wolf, scratching its fur as she held it like a baby, before the wolf monster bounded off to the couch. “More guests for the party?”

  Scratch that, daughter. Kelly kind of saw the resemblance.

  “Stacy Haider,” she said, nodding politely at Kelly with a friendly smile. She was dressed elegantly. Kelly would have considered her absolutely stunning if not for the scar running from her cheek down to her neck, a striking and permanent line that someone with her obvious resources could have easily erased. Her eyes were a bright, vivid very faintly luminescent gold, which could have been a custom mod, but their slight asymmetry paired with the scar suggested something else. It suggested mutant—one of the unlucky early-wave ones. That would explain the full-body nanotech replacement.

  “That thing is going to shred your security deposit!” Kelly said.

  “The security deposit is already forfeit! It ate the last security guard!” Stacy replied.

  “A true conservationist.”

  Kelly’s eyebrows lifted. No way… is she?

  Stacy responded, “I prefer the term ‘aggressive recycling’!”

  She was!

  They both burst out laughing at the same time. The sound startled the wolf cub, who let out a confused, warbling howl to contribute. The woman with dark-brown hair stared at them as if they’d started speaking in tongues. Dr. Haider just looked puzzled.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “It’s a vibe thing, Dad. You wouldn’t get it,” Stacy said, shaking her head at Dr. Haider. “A cool people thing. Our wavelengths match.”

  “Exactly,” Kelly said. It was a rare condition, being this cool. She politely introduced herself to the now extra-interesting woman. “Dr. Kelly Voss. I’m immortal, and a baby god of time. But it’s kind of a big-deal-corpo-secret. Don’t tell Genecorp.”

  “You have been telling people that all day,” Dr. Joe Haider pointed out, placing a hand on his daughter’s shoulder.

  “Because it keeps being true!” Kelly glanced around. Reggie and his henchman were over by the couch, scratching the portal monster—a three-eyed wolf cub the size of a large dog—behind its ears. The creature was being pampered so thoroughly, fed so well, it looked as though it was conducting a genuine cost-benefit analysis on domestication. It quickly returned to Stacy’s arms. Dr. Haider had claimed they couldn’t be tamed without a neural implant. The cub was making a compelling counter-argument. Humanity had turned ancient wolves into handbag-sized Chihuahuas over centuries. The process for an extra-dimensional bloodthirsty magic beast probably just required more snacks.

  She went on, sounding almost offhand. “My nanotech suite pulls his vitals—brain activity, temperature, pheromone levels. Nothing shady. Running light probes on animals is legal if their owners don’t lock down their neural signatures.” She shrugged. “They’re frighteningly bright, too. Way smarter than dogs. Maybe even smarter than dolphins. They understand trade. Before you came, this one tried to swap a shiny pebble from its dimension for my wristwatch.”

  Ah, nanotech. It came in countless varieties, each swarm insanely versatile and designed for a different, absurdly specific purpose. Kelly liked them, mostly because you never knew what you were going to get. One swarm could repair bridges, another could make a convincing latte—apparently no one had ever told the engineers to stop. Even by her standards, their capabilities were downright weird and bizarre. Someone, at some point, had looked at many problems and thought, yes, nanobots.

  Kelly wondered what would happen if you added magic to them—real magic, like whatever the angel and its god were doing, and what her runes and crystals could do.

  “Is that a standard Nano-swarm setup, or did you go full custom?” Kelly asked, tilting her head.

  “Full custom,” Stacy replied, holding her palm out. A shimmering cloud of silver motes coalesced above her skin. “I’m higher-grade Biomimetic. The swarm copies my old nervous system, but with upgrades. It reads the wolf—and I can send signals back too. I can calm them, mimic their pack signals, even get basic intent across. The probes are gentle. It just treats me like a weird, patient alpha.” She let the motes dissolve back into her skin. “You call us Handlers because we handle relic mutants. The label’s dramatic, but the permit’s real.”

  Stacy probably expected Kelly to know the title. Kelly didn't. It was a specialty she'd never gotten around to. She'd hit plenty of data-chip vaults, but nanotech wasn't her thing. Her know-how there was just barely above what any corporate grunt would know.

  She did know the word 'biomimetic' meant the nanoswarm faked biology. Not perfectly—It just copied functions from a real creature. That was the basic idea.

  Kelly was sure that wasn't the whole story. There had to be a weapon in there somewhere. Or at least a decent coffee maker. Only a total moron would get a whole nanoswarm body just to have a fancy copy of the old one.

  Finally having enough of the noise, or maybe just bored, the guy with the cigarette wandered over from the couch to join them. A name like ‘Razor’ or ‘Viper’ probably would have suited him better. He was covered in tattoos and had the rough, criminally-inclined look of a man who’d tried a brief stint modeling for Abercrombie & Fitch before returning to a life of crime. He eyed Kelly with open skepticism.

  “Why is there a stranger here?” he asked bluntly, staring right at her. “You new? You look new.”

  “Manuel! Be polite!” Stacy snapped.

  “I’m a doctor,” Kelly replied, her tone flat. “I’m here for the free wine and to assess the structural integrity of your skull. It looks fascinatingly thin.”

  “Oh, really?” He didn’t sound impressed. He glanced at Stacy, who was giving him a ‘be-nice-to-the-guest’ look he completely ignored. “Stace says you’re a guest. We don’t get doctors here for social calls. So I’m assuming you do something more.” His eyes scanned her up and down. “You don’t look like a killer. You look… soft.”

  “Appearances are a social construct,” Kelly deadpanned. “I’m harder than I look.”

  Manuel snorted.

  “She killed a high E-rank portal creature in the Mist Market. A mutated one,” Dr. Haider said, his voice calm and factual. “With her bare hands. Don’t push it, Manuel.”

  Kelly practically floated with pride.

  “Ah, new muscle?” he said thoughtfully, giving Kelly an appraising look. “About time. Can’t ride near Obsidian without those nutjobs ambushing me, and half our normies don’t wanna do deliveries there anymore. Hans’s guys are getting worse, too.”

  “Can we talk work some other night?” Stacy asked. She clapped, and a liquid ripple ran across her shoulders and back—the only sign her human-looking body was a swarm. Her forearm dissolved into silver motes, fetched a wine bottle, and returned to skin. At the same time, part of her side flowed into a second, smaller set of arms that cradled the three-eyed wolf cub. “Can you help set the table? Get the party stuff—board games and plates—while we finish the food?”

  “Do you like Monopoly? Or do you prefer blackjack?” Dr. Haider asked. “There’s a running bet, and the winner gets the cash.”

  “I don’t like blackjack, but I like money,” Kelly joked. Most of them smiled in response. Everyone except Manuel, who took it as a challenge. Kelly paused, taking it all in; the borderline mansion, the staff, the security. Despite the fireplace and the lasagna, the whole thing had a slightly… professional feel to it. “Are you a part of Vaughn? Or Han Cybernetics?” Kelly asked. “What is this?

  Dr. Haider’s expression tightened slightly at the mention of Vaughn.

  “We’re all part of an organization, and we operate under one fragmented umbrella. And yes, we and those companies occasionally work together. We don’t have an official name. Names give people a target. People only know me, not who works with me,” he said, his tone practical, almost rehearsed. “We also share this building for practical reasons. Since before today, privacy from the state was a luxury very few buildings could provide.”

  He turned his attention fully to Kelly, his tone shifting into something warmer, yet still carrying that same unshakable certainty.

  “I wanted to invite you to rest here for a few days until our business is done. It won’t cost you anything, and you will like it more than a hotel. And there really is someone I would like you to meet.”

  “Joe owns the place,” Manuel said. His voice was flat, almost bored. “He’s one of the owners. The public face.” He tipped his chin toward Kelly. “Every now and then he gets soft. Like with her.”

  “Manuel,” Dr. Haider said with a weary sigh. His daughter snorted quietly beside him. “A little civility.”

  “I appreciate the offer to spy on me in place of the government corpos, but I prefer my privacy,” Kelly replied.

  “This is a friendly proposal, no hidden strings,” Dr. Haider said, and to Kelly’s surprise, he sounded genuine.

  Was it because he felt guilty about her past? He had nothing to do with that. Weird guy.

  “Still, I think you’d gain a lot by joining our big family; both personally and professionally.”

  “To be honest,” Kelly sighed. “I’m just looking for Jennie,” she said, uninterested. “Silver hair, gold eyes, lots of Deadtech? New to town?”

  “Wait a minute?” This time the name seemed familiar to Stacy. “I’ve heard of something like that… it sounds familiar…” She gasped. “The outskirts raid! And the big one that happened not long ago,” Stacy said. “That was her? Killed a whole family, I heard.”

  “No, she let them live,” Kelly said, much to her hosts’ surprise.

  “Ah, yes, I remember.” Dr. Haider nodded. “Vaughn Private Security caught her, and Gideon himself wanted her shipped to Jupiter for interrogation. I’m not sure if the weapons division followed through, though.”

  “You’re not sure? I thought you—You don’t work for Gideon?” Kelly asked, confused.

  “Our organization works ‘with’ almost everyone, from the Mistmarket to the Big Four, but we only work for ourselves,” Dr. Haider told Kelly.

  Stacy jumped in. “Yeah, we do some… pretty cool stuff. But it’s not crime,” she hastily added. “We do relic retrieval. Relic invention, which is kind of a big deal. We poke anomalies until they do tricks.” She lightly held a few of her fingers up, as if counting items from a shopping list. “We find new tech, dig up old tech that got people killed. There’s some private security work when we need a change of pace.” She shrugged. “Oh, and okay, and the weapon trade happens. Different department. Our bosses talk sometimes, but mostly everyone just does their own super-legal, profitable thing.”

  Some of those things sounded decidedly ‘not’ legal to Kelly. It sounded more like a particularly violent bureaucracy with a side of criminal syndicate than an ‘organization’ spearheaded by the most notorious physician on the planet.

  “Wait, why me?” she asked. “I mean, I get it, but why do you get it?”

  “I’m one of the Upper Echelon’s primary recruiters,” Dr. Joe Haider explained. “They trust me to evaluate potential new recruits for a first check. But this isn’t about that, Kelly. Not really.”

  “I will introduce you to one of our founders tomorrow, even if you don’t want to join,” Dr. Haider told Kelly. “That should let you blow off some steam and solve one of your problems neatly. Until then, you’re welcome to live with us. Let me know your thoughts.”

  “If you’re here instead of in a ditch, that means you already passed Joe’s assessment,” Manuel said. He pulled a bottle of something clear and cold from a fridge—a seamless luxury unit with holographic inventory scrolling across its surface.

  Kelly considered the proposal.

  Apart from Manuel, they seemed like decent people, given their professional focus on high-stakes theft and light treason. It could be a good time.

  But Kelly usually avoided groups. Groups came with an unfortunate side effect: she died a lot. Then everyone forgot her, which really ruined the vibe. Practice did not help. If anything, it just added confidence to the failure.

  Even her bond with Jennie would have cracked under the same conditions—unless Jennie stayed Jennie and noticed the differences every time. Which she probably would, because Kelly was not exactly subtle anymore. She changed. Constantly. Like a software update no one read but everyone complained about.

  They had grown up tangled together anyway, close enough that memory loss would likely never quite manage a clean wipe. Something always lingered. A feeling. A reflex. An inexplicable urge to understand and trust this specific person.

  Getting attached, then getting treated like a stranger a day later, hurt in a dull, familiar way. Kelly hated that part more than the dying. At least dying was honest. Forgetting was just rude.

  She figured she could leave the moment things started to feel real. Walking out stayed easy. Dying stayed easier. Which was frankly an efficiency issue no one addressed.

  Dr. Haider—Joe—had framed it as an invitation, but his tone left no room for debate. Truth be told, she could only gain from this. Her initial strategy involved showing up after the East Grid job went to hell, using a hired army of heavily armed lunatics as offensive against the winged angel-god of primordial order that would inevitably start squatting on the magical cube. Tomorrow might get canceled. Packing this many heavily-augmented, well-armed career criminals into a luxury living room was a reliable recipe for an impromptu reset.

  She let the silence sit long enough to make Joe wonder whether he had pushed too hard.

  Yeah. This could be fun.

  “Sure, why not,” Kelly said.

  Everyone heard yes.

  “Alright, ground rules. No psychoactive aerosols, no dream gas, no laughing gas, no drugs of any kind—weed is acceptable but restricted to the balcony. Beer is in the fridge. Use the cocaine bathroom for cocaine, not the bathroom bathroom,” Dr. Haider said, radiating a potent, unmistakable dad energy. “Everybody cleans up their own mess. There is a weapons room on each floor for emergencies. Otherwise, no guns. The main lab is in the basement. The industrial printer is on the fourth floor. And nobody is allowed in the—you know what, never mind. It’s better you don’t know. If you need to use the pool, ask Manuel. Stacy is in charge of the—”

  Kelly listened in a perfect mimicry of cooperative silence. She was a portrait of faux-compliance.

  The building held enough facilities to handle the odd jobs and criminal needs of Dr. Haider’s wealthy, powerful connections.

  It was also full of secrets, and Haider made sure she ran straight into the obvious ones. Red herrings were everywhere. Anything really interesting stayed far out of her reach.

  He understood her too well.

  But someone else in his employ clearly didn’t. Kelly looked around, noticed how carefully everything was arranged to distract her, and shook her head. Whoever thought putting her in a building full of tempting hazards and expecting her to behave had no idea what they were doing.

  She thought about the fox-in-a-henhouse scenario. She was definitely the fox here. Good call, ‘Joe’. Real subtle. She might be polite and wander around for a while, or she might poke at the wrong door just for fun.

  Either way, the feathers were going to fly.