An Outsider's Perspective Ch 4

And this is the last one for now!

Hope you lot liked the story so far! So excited for what's coming next! ^_^

Drop me a comment or two...or don't. Look forward to next weekend where we get second new story!

I'm gonna go uhh...put some finishing touches on the chapters that will be posted next weekend.

That's all for now.

=][=

It took the better part of three hours, according to my HUD, for me to make it to the Pocket Dimensions Manufacturing Center.

I’d taken the time to find relative safety and refill the spent and partially spent magazines, as well as replenish the grenades in my combat vest. Sucked down a Bewbs and washed the taste out of my mouth with plenty of water.

I had luckily not run into anything else that could shoot back. Though there had been a butt puckering moment where I had to run through the more exposed hallways of the Company Processing Center.

But I was here, at this place that looked…like an office, it had a half-circular reception desk, sterile white hallways lined with doors, uncomfortable but aesthetically pleasing furniture...

Was it bad that I had expected cool sci-fi hardlight screens, glowing buttons, spectral gauges, maybe a huge magic circle?

Maybe, but it being a completely mundane office would work.

Logging into one of the computers as an Admin, I swore when I saw that the system was down. The power core had been disconnected somehow, and it would require repairs. I had the option of opening a ticket, but I probably would have been the tech sent to pick up said ticket.

Only this time I was going to have to do it without working infrastructure.

Good thing I had diligently downloaded all the instruction manuals I’d been ordered not to download.

I looked for the door labeled ‘Staff Only’ and stepped into the back, and was met with holographic hardlight screens, walls of glowing buttons, spectral gauges, and a huge machine made up of concentric metal rings with glowing runes carved into their surfaces suspended above a huge magic circle.

…

Thinking on it, having it just be an office was better, the mishmash of magic, magitech, and Tech Level 7-9 consoles and panels inset in mystic patterns of at the very least twelve separate magic traditions just came across as needlessly busy.

Looking around, I found the nearest working station, its screen was flickering but poking it caused a physical keyboard to extrude from the station, allowing me to easily navigate to the facility’s blueprints and track the damages and errors.

Thankfully, the Matter Reconstituter, Universe Stabilizer, Reality Anchor Forgers, etcetera were all fine. Someone or something had destroyed a section of the arterial power delivery wire, a small section sure, only about a meter needed to be replaced. And checking the inventory, it was marked as in stock. With any luck, that would still be there.

The wire was so thick that I would barely be able to wrap my arms around it. So I was going to have to go into another detour to get the tools I needed to actually get the job done.

With that matter decided, the screen flickered and came back with a simple text interface.

[Contractor.]

I blinked and asked. “Does this thing have a microphone?”

Receiving no answer was an answer in itself, with a shrug, I typed. [Whatcha want? I’m busy.]

[You are a Contractor, scans show you have the implants to host additional intelligences.]

My HUD warned me that someone was trying to connect with my brain and was asking permission to come in. My internal firewall also stopped an attempt of something installing itself into my interface system.

[You will take this intelligence with you.] Whatever this thing was continued. [This intelligence will assist you in return.]

I did a quick cost-benefit analysis, then pressed down the power button until the terminal shut down. Causing the attempts to breach through my systems to cease.

“No reason to take chances.” I muttered. I might have actually considered it had it not tried to install itself into me like a sneaky piece of shit.

Luckily the Pocket Dimensions Manufacturing Center was fairly self-contained. Most other places in processing centers were connected to central power for efficiency. But you do not fuck with pocket dimensions. One poorly timed power surge could result in destabilization of local reality.

Thus, the Pocket Dimensions Manufacturing Center had its own reactor, its own maintenance bays, and its own delivery port for incoming supplies and replacement parts.

As such, I was thankfully able to find a Slutlife Construction Vehicle. It was an industrial exo-suit that some contractor or another had stolen and sold as-is to the Company. The Company then repainted it bright pink, added a screen on the back to advertise their brainrot reality TV shows, and put to work in whatever hellhole a poor fucker like me got sent off to.

The one in the PDMC didn’t have the screen, but it had been replaced with stickers of the various establishments that sprang up around the Processing Center. Most of them restaurants, bars, coliseums, arcades or dance halls. As was often with the Company, it was easier to count the establishments that didn’t serve double duty as a brothel than the opposite.

Fuckin’ Company. Maybe I could set things up and cause a Wildcat destabilization of the Processing Center’s Power Core.

The suit’s battery was sitting at 72%, more than enough. I replaced the right arm’s standard drill with a second manipulator with an integral welding laser.

I stomped to the spare parts warehouse, and with the system down, had to scan through the warehouse shelves until I found the wire I needed.

I cut off a four-meter length just in case and walked it to the area that was damaged. Where I paused.

There was a section missing.

The wire was laying out in the open corridor, alongside pipes that delivered coolant to and from the reactor, thaumaturgical runes carved around the wire and pipes to keep dust and other such particulates away, as well as slow any corrosion.

A meter diameter half-oval had been taken out of the ground where the wire ran and deposited on the ceiling, where it had fused itself to the ceiling light, which somehow still worked thanks to emergency power and sheer blind luck.

Unfortunately, the wire hadn’t been the only thing cut. So had the pipes, coolant had spilled over the floor, the drop in pressure triggering the system to stop the flow of coolant, which had caused the generator to shut down.

I sighed, set the wire down, and went to fetch more piping and a mop.

At least it wasn’t radioactive.

…

I took a detour to find a Geiger counter

=][=

It took a whole lot more welding rods than I was comfortable admitting as well as far too long cleaning up the spilled coolant, but I had the wire and piping repaired.

Would my repair last longer than two or three days? No, it was far too amateurish, but I didn’t need it to, so it was good enough. It could explode for all I cared so long as it did it when I was no longer in the building.

I went to the control room, ran a few diagnostics, then kindled the reactor. The facility’s lights flickered as power returned, and the Reality Forge came online.

I instructed the computer to run several more diagnostics while I familiarized myself with the system, and was both relieved and disappointed.

The system used to create such wonders as a pocket dimension and, at later stages, whole solar systems…was a combination of a spreadsheet and drag-and-drop. And most of it was offline, plenty of the process was dependent on off-site resources, and access to those wasn’t possible until the current crisis was resolved.

Still, it was a surprise to see how much Contractors got price gouged on the creation of their pocket realms.

I looked at the power requirements for various levels of pocket dimension, as well as what was in-facility for me to work with, and the only thing I’d be able to snag would be the workshop I’d worked so hard for.

I would not be able to use it to its fullest potential without Science and Engineering talents. But I’d been using machinery like it for over a decade so I’d definitely get at the very least some use out of it.

I made certain that it was equipped with the magi-tech that could absorb interdimensional energy and convert that Protean energy into whatever form of matter I needed for the Workshop. As well as a Tech Level 9 autodoc.

Magical materials would be beyond it, but I should be able to print out the periodic table of wherever I ended up.

Hopefully.

Unfortunately, while I would have my own pocket dimension with a Workshop, I’d not be able to have the pocket space.

The Workshop would attach itself perpendicular to whatever reality I ended up in, and whatever portal to enter it I set down would remain standalone, the pocket space utilized triangulation that would broadcast my location to the Company, and I did not know how to modify that so that it wouldn’t.

Annoying, but that was a price I was willing to pay. I couldn’t take the time to figure out an alternative process, either the Company would counter attack and retake the facility, or one of the things that got loose would eat me.

Either way, the pocket space was not worth losing the opportunity to leave and give the middle finger to the Company.

I finalized the selection, set the machine for a delayed start, then made my way to the center of the lazily spinning rings that, once I examined them up close, I realized that they were the fossilized remains of an Ophanim.

Hmmm…hmm…that…hmm.

I did not want to deal with that right now.

The Ophanim corpse began to spin, the rings moving with the meekest whisper of sliding metal.

The dozens of eyes opened and each and every one of them focused on me.

This made it very difficult to disassociate from the whole experience like I wanted to.

The device was active for a distressingly long time, long enough for me to imagine that those dozens of eyes that tracked me as they moved, stared at me with reproach and repressed rage.

At least, I sincerely hoped that was my imagination.

I felt it the moment my pocket dimension was bonded to me, my HUD automatically updating, synching with it and giving me control of portal placement.

I squashed my desire to immediately plop the door down in front of me and spend some time in my new workshop. I would do that if I absolutely had to, but instead I forced myself to wait for the angel’s corpse to slow enough so I could step out of it, and moved on to the final aspect of my Master Plan.

Though in truth, the ‘plan’ part had been everything I’d done up to this point, what was left was the gamble.

With a resolute stride, I left the Pocket Dimensions Manufacturing Center.

I had some dice to roll.

=][=

I stood at a crossroads.

I knew what I had to do, but what needed to be done and what I wanted to do were two very different things.

I didn’t even know if it would be possible, for all I knew, all I’d be able to manage would be to get passage for one.

But what if I could get more?

Greed had killed more men than any other cause in history. I had already stolen enough to ensure a long and fruitful life.

But I could have more.

But no, that was ludicrous, it was a gamble on top of another gamble.

But what was life without a little risk?

I continued to stand at the crossroads as I argued with myself.

Down one direction, my destination: the Omega-Class Containment And Processing Center. The extremely volatile and capricious key to my freedom.

In the other direction, one of the many cryogenic storage centers for Tiers 1 through 5…product.

Yes, this entire facility had come under attack for this very reason, but that attack had been concentrated on freeing the Primes. Or, whichever Prime or near-Prime versions were at the Processing Center at the time. This cryogenics was for clones, lower-tier clones at that.

And if one thing was true among the multiverse, is that nobody cared a rat’s ass about clones.

Except, sometimes, other clones.

Cryogenic storage for low-tier clones was fairly far down the list of priorities. If the Processing Center’s power was further compromised, power to that cryogenic storage would be one of the first things cut. They were that cheap to produce.

Sending anyone to retrieve one of them was literally more expensive than simply making a new one. It was done as a punishment, or a test.

Hell, I could even drop them off at my interdimensional workshop.

…No, that would leave a residue that could be followed. And I was an Agent who had passed a Final, no expense would be spared to bring me back if they learned I had not, in fact, died.

It wasn’t even for the potential profit that could be made off of setting me loose in the multiverse, it would be about sending a message to other Agents with ideas about freedom without first making sure the Company profited greatly off their efforts.

I itched to go to Omega-Class Containment, to throw my dice and see if the result came up snake eyes.

But I’d certainly give whatever girl I unfroze a better life than just about any other Agent, most of us were assholes. So I turned toward low-tier cryogenics, muttering, “Fuck it.”

The facility was like so much of the rest of the staff-only areas of the Processing Center: Utilitarian, and full of pipes. Unlike much of what I’d seen while making my way here, however, it wasn’t beaten to shit, the only exposed wiring that which was being worked on or repaired before the attack started and the High Priority Assets were secured and evacuated.

I walked past the Tier 1 and 2 storage. If I had a secure and safe way out, I’d be more than happy to take a number of the Company’s low-tier assets with me. The number I’d need to take before bothering to investigate became a worthwhile expense was staggering.

But I did not have a fully secure way to leave. I was already taking a huge gamble with my life, there was a significant non-zero chance that I’d be refused passage for my passenger.

But dammit, I’ll be bargaining from a position of relative strength. I’d make it work.

Probably.

I went straight to the Tier 5 storage. Walking through the maintenance access door, I found myself in a cavernous warehouse lined with rows upon rows upon rows of upright cryopods.

I exhaled and ignored the cloud of steam as I began to walk down the rows.

There were hundreds of ‘options’ available. Too many to sift through manually.

I couldn’t just go with someone random. Tier 5 is where one had the lower level superhumans. I needed someone who would be willing to allow a baseline human to take the lead, but who could bring quite a bit of hurt to the table.

Or healing. But Tier fives who could heal were usually busybodies who had a tendency not to leave things well enough alone, and I was not going to have access to the abilities and resources of a Contractor.

Yes, this was a price I was more than willing to pay for my freedom, but freedom in the multiverse came with consequences.

Eventually I found a terminal, whomever had been using it had not even logged out.

The current inventory in Tier 5 storage alone was in the tens of thousands, in large part thanks to multiple copies of the ‘product.’

Well, it would be easier to search by what I didn’t want, so I filtered out the insane, the unstable, the monstrous, the superheroes.

Out of the several thousand results from the first filtering, I refined the search further. I needed someone I could trust my back to in a fight, who would follow instructions, and who was naturally inclined to be loyal to whoever issued said instructions.

Yes the Binding would do a lot, but it would do its work better by reinforcing natural inclinations than fighting against them.

Out of the several hundred possible results, I remembered to filter out men, removing half of the results.

Lastly, I removed anyone from realities I was not familiar with, bringing the results down to a few dozen.

Looking through the curated list, I made my choice and set the coordinates to the nearest copy to my HUD, then made my way to the chosen cryopod. It, like all the others, held its occupant in stasis, a transparasteel panel separating the occupant from the world.

The young woman in the pod slept serenely, she was beautiful, not quite uncannily so. She would not be considered tall, standing a bit under five foot three at her full height. She had angular Slavic features, fair skin, grey-brown hair, two adorable bear ears on her head covered in fur the same color as her hair.

Her clothes were gray and brown, and she wore a jacket much too big for her tied around her hips like a waist cape.

I went to the datapad built into the cryopod and started working. A Stamp would make this process much simpler, all I’d have to do in that case would be to press the Stamp against the datapad. But these cryo-units were made for ease of use, specifically to be shipped to customers, people who did not have a Company Stamp. So long as someone had basic literacy they’d eventually be able to figure out how to work the pod’s systems.

As someone who had been doing maintenance on the damn things for a few years? Setting the pod to Bind to me before beginning the decanting procedure was simplicity itself.

I swayed back and forth while I waited for the pod’s automatic procedures to finish, the wait felt interminable, but it wasn’t long before the pod hissed as its hermetic seal broke and the transparasteel panel lifted.

The girl took a deep breath, her first in who knows how long, a pair of haunted red eyes opened slowly, then blinked and looked around, taking in her surroundings.

Those were the eyes of someone who’d had everything ripped from them and now continued moving mainly due to momentum. I’d seen eyes like those in the mirror more often than I cared to admit.

Her gaze settled on me with a mixture of hope and apprehension.

Her face remained placid and wary, but her animal ears twitched animatedly at the sight of me. When she spoke, her voice was soft and deep for a girl of her build, a Slavic accent barely present and granting her words a mellifluous note. “Hello my name is Zoya…It is an honor.”

I removed my mask, then reached a hand up to her while I did my best to smile reassuringly. “Hey Zoya, my name’s Alex, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

She hesitantly took my hand, her breath hitching at the contact, her cheeks gaining a slight dusting of red as I helped her step daintily down from the cryopod. She looked up at me, unsure of what to do, either her nature or the Binding already making her look to me for guidance.

The top of her head did not reach my chin, which placed it at the perfect height for headpats, which I provided as I gently rubbed between her ursine ears. “I’d love to stay and chat, but we need to leave.”

I pressed the button for the storage space at the bottom of the pod, then provided percussive maintenance when that didn’t work. The only things in there were a duffel bag, a harness, a few tactical pouches, and a holster with a magitech looking revolver, though instead of a barrel it seemed to have a wand.

I helped Zoya put her gear on her, then put my mask back on, took her hand and began walking, drawing my revolver as I did. She needed the help as she was still wobbly from being woken from stasis.

“What…What about everyone else?” She asked after long, tense seconds.

I sighed, and decided to play a little with the truth. “Sorry, I’d love to help more of them out, but I’ve only got space for a plus one with my exit strategy.”

Her grip on my hand tightened, but she did not voice any further complaints.

She followed me sedately, only stumbling a few times, but I was able to pull her straight with the hold I had on her hand as we made our way out of the storage area and went back to the crossroads to Omega-Class containment.

From one step to the next, I knew I had entered the Containment Wing, the place looked no different from the other more utilitarian areas of the Processing Center. Bare concrete walls, the occasional door.

But the air was heavier, sharper. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, the lights, they were all more real than mere reality. I could feel the things in the rooms, scratching at the skein of reality, trying to unravel it. To dictate to me and the world around me what reality was, as was just and natural.

Zoya hesitated, but did not fight as I pulled her along, not ungently, but every second we spent in the Processing Center was another chance that the slight opening for escape would close completely. I instructed her to remain quiet, and to let me do the talking.

As we walked, the things within small concrete rooms impressed themselves upon my mind.

Behind this door an ancient creature, its tattered robes the color of day-old vomit. It did not wait, for that it would need patience, it did not pace, for that it would require exasperation, it merely was, ready to infect an unlucky theater.

Trapped within this one, an Ancient Guardian with a sword made of the hottest flame, its skin so radiant it would blind the unprotected eye. It no longer bothered to lash out, but waited patiently for the meekest opening to unleash its cleansing flames.

Caged inside this one a being both young and far more ancient than all human civilizations. A deity’s first failed attempt at creation in its own image, and like all first attempts, grievously flawed as a result.

In this one, a deer, Titanic in size, a ring of ice floating behind it, with seven spheres of cold, liquid metal spinning through seven lazy orbits in the ring. It paced its small cell, tracing the same oval over and over in its restlessness.

Behind each door a horror, each one so powerful that my entire species was less than a gnat in comparison.

From these creatures that could unironically be called gods, the greatest of Templates were crafted, one drop of their ichor, properly harnessed and transmuted, could elevate one to Godhood.

A mere concrete box should not have been capable of containing any one of them, yet they did. Here, they were rendered down into components and ingredients, their nearly unimaginable might taken from them one minute sip at a time.

Any one of these horrid but awe inspiring creatures could do as I wished. Whisk me away to a better place.

But none of them would, they were far too arrogant, and those that weren’t, were more often than not too alien to comprehend the bargain that was being attempted, and would admittedly do their best, destroying me in the process.

I searched through the horrors trapped in tiny boxes, until I found the one I was looking for, and before I could convince myself otherwise, I pushed the unlocked door open, and stepped inside, pulling Zoya in behind me.

Every Processing Center had at least one, precisely because this one specific being was not only willing to bargain; he kept his word to the letter and spirit of his agreements.

The door led into a short corridor, one side of this corridor was a bare concrete wall, the other a small, sparsely furnished, but nonetheless comfortable cell, with seemingly nothing separating me from the cell’s occupant.

The one in the cell did not sit, nor was he standing.

He floated in the center of the cell, his head nearly brushing the ceiling. He was a pale man, his features were a little Norse, a little Slavic, and a little Victorian. Lines were etched in his face, though it was impossible to tell if from amusement or worry.

It was difficult to put a precise age to him, depending on the angle the light hit him, he could have been anywhere from his mid-twenties to his early sixties.

A pair of fathomless eyes followed my every movement, eyes that were windows into a vast emptiness that reflected no light.

I stepped right up to the line indicated on the floor that was the ‘safe’ place to stand and address the being trapped before me. Zoya unconsciously pressing herself flush against my back, burying her face in my shirt as she trembled, seeking comfort and safety.

Perhaps, the animal ears came with keener senses and instincts.

“Outsider.” I said , my voice as clear as I could make it. “I’ve come to bargain.”

The Outsider regarded me with cold, indifferent calculation, then spoke. “You are not the one who was to come and free me.”

His face split into a slight, but all too genuine and painfully human grin. Then said the one word I’d been hoping with all my might he would not utter in my presence.

The Outsider just said I was interesting. What were my options?

Panic? Entirely justified but not ideal.

Cackle? No, He may take offense and then I’d be stuck with some other god-entity that likely will not have vestigial traces of humanity.

Ignore it?

…

Yeah, that seemed like a good idea.

“Be that as it may.” I said. “I came to bargain, and we have little time in which to do it.”

His unrelenting stare did not leave my eyes for even a second. I blinked, and then stepped back with a muttered curse as He’d transitioned to standing in front of me on the other side of the ‘safe’ line.

“And what is it that you bargain with?” The Outsider asked.

I worked my jaw. “Your freedom. Agree to my terms, and I will shut down the anchors holding you here.”

He hummed. “My isolation was a novel experience at first, but quickly lost its luster.”

I swallowed and nodded. “When I free you, you will do…whatever it is you do and get the fuck out of here. I want you to take me and this girl with you. Leave a clone of my body behind for them to find. That’s it. Take us to a world with humans, preferably one where people with a few animal bits are considered part of humanity, one where we can live a good, unremarkable life. And we’ll call it even.”

The Outsider tilted his head. “He Who Has Chosen The Name Alexander. Why do you claim to crave an unremarkable life?”

“Must we discuss semantics?” I snapped.

“Yes.”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came to mind for me to say. I grit my teeth and shook my head. “Because it’s what I fuckin’ want!”

He hummed. “The many other versions of you that work for this droll little Company…They do not have an unremarkable life. Not at first.”

“Well, that’s them and I’m me.” I said. “Do we have a deal or what?”

“Even you. Had this attack not happened, you would have moved on to having a most entertaining existence.” He tilted his head, His Void Black eyes drinking in my every twitch and expression. “No, I do not think an unremarkable life would fit you.”

“Yeah well, that’s the terms of my bargain!” I snapped. “Take it or leave it, I don’t have all day!”

He smiled.

The fact that it was a completely normal, joyful smile, made it all the worse.

“Very well.” He said. “Release me. I shall take you with me. And leave behind a copy of your body. It will have the smallest trace of your mind and soul, just enough to fool any who would find it. It will be painful however, as I’ll need to sever those traces from the rest of you.”

I swallowed, and nodded. “Alright.”

I walked to the touchscreen console inset into the wall, and booted up the admin login. Unfortunately, typing ‘80085’ did not log me in. Neither did ‘111111’ or ‘QWERTY’.

Impossible, someone was actually smart enough to come up with different admin passwords for different departments?

Then I remembered the name of the Company I was trying to not work for, and typed in ‘Penis.’

A few moments later, I had administrator access.

I didn’t bother sighing. I was leaving.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

“Alex.”

I stopped and turned to look at Zoya. “Yeah?”

“I’m…I’m scared.” She said in a small voice. “I don’t…I’m not sure if this is a good idea.”

I sighed, peeled her off my back, brought her to my front, and hugged her head to my chest. “Don’t you worry. Everything will be alright.”

Her arms enveloped me in a hug, and she pulled herself more tightly against me. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” I lied, and used the touch screen to navigate to the force field controls, as well as the Reality Anchor denying the Outsider’s influence, and promptly shut both of them down.

“Okay so how are we doing this?” I asked, turning around to see the Outsider’s palm as He gripped my head, the ice-cold rings on His fingers digging into my head as if my mask weren’t there.

Pain.

Indescribable. Agonizing. Maddening.

Time lost all meaning, cold winds that howled mournfully. Great Leviathans that gave way while staring curiously with too many eyes.

I landed on the ground with a huff, hard asphalt digging into my side. Eyes that stung from the light took in my surroundings.

Buildings, I was in an alleyway. A surprisingly clean one. There was a cat, it was black, its hackles were raised as it hissed at the One who stood next to me. My arms held tightly to something soft and warm, it wept quietly as it trembled.

“Congratulations.” The Outsider said. “You are officially unemployed.”

I tried to speak, what came out was a choked gasp, it felt as if I was trying to breathe inside a furnace.

The Outsider knelt next to me, I did what I could to place as much of myself between Him and the girl in my arms. “In this place, there are humans like you and her. In this place, you can have your unremarkable life.”

His hand reached down and touched my face, removing my mask. “But call this a hunch, rather than an investment. You gained my attention when you walked into my cell. But what you have done, what you achieved? That garnered curiosity.”

He ran His hands over the mask, staring at it curiously.

My left hand burned.

“You nearly died dozens of times before reaching me, Alexander. And yet, you used guile and ruthlessness to change your fate, but even then, you acted with empathy and respect when you didn’t need to. Not long after that, you acted selfishly, placing great risk on someone previously uninvolved.” He set the mask down gently, resting it against my shoulder. “That is rather intriguing. There are places here that even the Void cannot reach, that my sight cannot touch. Places that would kill you in minutes, for you do not have the genetic markers to resist their influence, the girl will be fine, the materials from her reality acting as an inoculation of sorts. But you? So long as you wear this mask, the influence of those places shall not touch you, and I’ll get a fine show. Can you imagine it? Not knowing what will happen? Having to find out moment to moment? A remarkable treat indeed.”

Then He was gone.

I coughed again, and took stock.

Pants? Check.

Shoes? Check.

Shirt and vest? Check.

Guns? Check, check and check.

Mask? Yup.

Duffel bag that’s bigger on the inside? Present, hopefully still bigger on the inside.

HUD? Working, and I can set down the doorway to my Workshop if I so desire.

Girl? Still in my arms, still trembling, still softly weeping.

Okay cool.

Rather than nap like I wanted to. I sat up and provided headpats until Zoya calmed down. Once she was calm and only occasionally muttering about infinity, darkness, and Leviathans that saw too much. I told her to sit quietly and wait, pushed myself painfully to my feet, put my guns in my duffel bag, picked up my mask, and wobbled painfully about so I could see what wonderful world I had ended up in.

As I reached the end of the alley, I spotted a completely normal but beautiful teenage schoolgirl, chatting with another beautiful teen girl in a school uniform, only she had a pair of cat ears that twitched and moved as she walked and talked, as well as a tail that lashed back and forth far too organically to be an accessory. Not only that, her clothes had been built around the likelihood of needing to accommodate extra body parts. And they did not look tailor-made.

Right. Cool.

I turned around and went back to the alleyway.

“I am way too hungover to deal with this shit.”