Having unfortunately finished my tea, I set the mug down with a moderately dramatic clunk. "So what is it you want from me?"

  "We know that you've already had encounters with an unusual Anathema cult we've already been investigating. From the outside, it seems as if you bumbled into their operations at some point after you lost control of your hunger several days ago. Is that correct?"

  I didn't see any reason to deny it, though it was certainly a bit spooky that they already knew so much about what happened. I nodded. "Yes. They were the same people who kidnapped me and Katherine. I'm assuming you also knew that?" He nodded, and I continued. "Anyway, I was trying to get away from a Guardian team that was pursuing me."

  I went on to explain the equipment they had set up on the building roof, how they had some kind of hive mind Anathema working with them, that they were interested in recruiting me, and that the equipment could somehow artificially trigger an incursion, which they used to help me escape as some kind of show of goodwill. My dad listened attentively, taking down a few short notes here and there.

  "We already knew much of this," he told me once I finished, "but the multiple nature of this other Anathema does explain some things." Turning away from his computer, he folded his hands on the table. "And it's good to hear that they were interested in recruiting you, because that's exactly what we want."

  "For me to be an inside agent?" I asked.

  "Precisely." Reaching underneath the desk, he brought out several items. There was a small, sunglasses sized case, a larger briefcase, and a much longer case that looked like it might hold a rifle or something similar. "While there are a number of others like you, the only Anathema with human intelligence and self-control that we knew of were those our own faction has worked to develop. This 'Mook,' as you call him—as well as 'Krok' and several others in the group that we've identified—none of them were created by us."

  I blinked. That wasn't what I expected. "So you're saying—"

  "We don't know," he interrupted. "We don't know if they were created by another faction, by someone operating completely outside of Star Guardian circles, or if it's something else entirely. That's what we want to find out. If they're the work of another faction within our numbers, then we want to know. If someone on the outside has figured these things out too, then we also want to know—and potentially establish an alliance. If it's something else entirely, well, then we definitely want to know what's going on."

  Huh. Thinking it over, I tried to recall if there was anything I'd seen that might already provide clues. After a few seconds, my memory touched on something that I think the bald guy said over his radio phone. "I think I remember one of them telling someone I was another Anathema that had 'retained control over my core' or something similar. I'm not sure what the exact words were, but it was something like that."

  My dad quickly noted it down. "I'm glad you remembered that. Frankly, it could still mean any number of things, but every clue we can get is potentially valuable." Turning back to me, he continued. "Unfortunately, there's something else you need to know. After 2011, part of the agreement we made was about non-interference. To oversimplify a bit, both factions agreed to keep things relatively 'hands off' with you and the others like you. That means that, at least officially, the Blues aren't going to come hunt you down, and we Reds aren't going to swoop in and protect you from regular, lower tier Guardians or the military.

  "That might sound a bit silly, but consider the context. When it became clear that we could simply retreat here upon short notice, the Blues weren't going to just sit back and let us get away with it free. When I tell you that they can't come for us here, I mean that they can't come on short notice. If things had continued to escalate, our position here would have become less certain. We ourselves still relied heavily on resources from back home at the time, which meant it was a temporary standoff. Something had to change, and we reached a diplomatic solution, you could say.

  "Because we still needed you back on Earth—there was a reason for introducing you into general society in the first place—we reached an agreement where we would drop our protection so long as the Blues themselves didn't come after you. If you screw up and a state or independent, regular Guardians come after you, both sides would let it play out—in theory. In practice, we still get away with what we can, and they do the same."

  I took a moment to digest it all after he finished his explanation. "So basically, I'm sort of protected from Star Guardians, but I still have to worry about everything else?"

  He nodded. "Sort of. We'll still provide you with what support we can, but for the most part, don't expect any of us to help you if you get yourself into a bad situation. You also need to stay wary. Just because the Blues have so far stuck to their agreement not to directly and overtly hunt you down doesn't mean that they'll leave you alone. I won't tell you much about the others like you—for security—but I will say that every single one also lost control at least once soon after hatching, and the other faction has been successful in weaponizing that moment several times before. There's a decent chance that the team of Guardians you fought were subtly nudged into your path by a much bigger fish."

  Damn. I took another moment to absorb things. That's—definitely a problem, yeah. Unfortunately, I didn't know what to do about it other than 'stay wary,' as he said. A moment later, a thought popped in my head about another topic. "Wait, is this why Katherine isn't allowed to talk about being a Star Guardian and all that other secrecy? Because all of you want to keep what goes on between you private from the rest of the world."

  "Pretty much," Dad confirmed. "Forcibly keeping new Star Guardians like Ms. Legato out of the public eye is necessary for us to keep things relatively contained over the long term. As for keeping things secret from her, that's meant to prevent the factions from scrambling to poach every new awakening. Another part of our agreements—going beyond just Red and Blue, and way before 2011—was to take a sort of sink or swim approach, gradually revealing more as a new member rises through the tiers.

  "We're not completely obtuse, of course. Ms. Legato will get her own private meeting in the coming days. We'll have representatives from Red, Blue, and Yellow, one of them being myself. Early on, those meetings are mostly about practical things a newly awakened needs to know that the more typical resources don't properly cover."

  Got it. "So that's it, then? You fill me in on the situation and ask me to join a cult?" You know, that sounds hilariously sketchy when you phrase it that way. "What do I get out of that?"

  "Well, there's just one other thing," my dad admitted, "we'd like you to continue building a relationship with Ms. Legato, if possible. Any additional member is valuable, but her particular ability could be exceptionally valuable to us. To be blunt, we'd like to effectively circumvent the poaching rules through your own association with her."

  Of course you do, I snarked in my head. "I assume I still can't just tell her all the secrets, though."

  "Probably not," Dad laughed, "for now, we just want you to stay friends, basically. As for what you get out of it—well, I want to emphasize that we won't drop your protected status just if you decide to say no. That being said, we're willing to invest a lot more resources into your advancement if you do end up working with us. Things you'd have a hard time getting in any other way."

  Wow, this is sounding sketchier and sketchier the longer it goes. Talk about major red flags. I raised an eyebrow. "Such as?"

  Instead of answering, he dramatically opened the big case—the one that looked like it might hold a gun or something. And it did turn out to be a weapon—just not a ranged one. Inside the case was a literal sword. I didn't know much about swords, but it was easy enough to tell that it was long, straight, double-edged, with a cross guard hilt, surprisingly long handle—at least in my uninformed opinion—and a circular pommel.

  Well, I said I didn't know much about swords, but it was clearly a quintessential example of what people variably called a longsword, bastard sword, hand and a half sword, or whatever else. It was what the average person thought of as a classic, 'knightly,' Medieval European 'sword.' Strictly speaking, it was much more of a Renaissance thing, but the same was true of full plate armor. It was overall a two-handed design—the reason for the longer handle, while the blade itself wasn't actually extended by that much.

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  Still, I'd never actually held a sword before, so I really wasn't anything close to an 'expert.' Regardless, the sword was quite plain. There was nothing remotely fanciful about it, aside from the faint, hair-thin inscriptions running over a few parts of the surface.

  The metal was also a bit odd. As I sat forward to peer at it, the way the light reflected off the metal seemed to shift. Overall, it was a brilliant silver color, but the light would at times instead give it a faint golden or even copper hue. It was also faintly, just barely iridescent at all times—not so ridiculous as those rainbow, heat-treated baubles you could find online, just the barest hint of it.

  I finally looked up. "It's a sword."

  "Astute observation." Touching his finger to the handle, he continued. "But not just any sword."

  I watched as those faint inscriptions lit up with faint, violet light. The fuck is this? Some kind of mythical enchanted artifact? What next, I was going to get a quest to slay the demonic dragon and restore peace to the five kingdoms? I thought the task was to join a cult, not an adventuring party. Proceeding to lift the weapon out of the case, he tested the weight, nodded, and then motioned for me to stand up.

  Somewhat skeptical, I did as he asked, until I was standing next to a floor lamp. Too late, I realized that he was going to fucking swing it at me. I was too surprised and he was too fast for me to dodge, and the sword passed straight through my neck—I blinked. My head was still attached, and all I felt was a frightening rush of air. The lamp next to me, however, was not so fortunate. I stared in disbelief as the top part of it clattered to the ground. The lamp had been on the opposite side of the swing—somehow, the blade had phased harmlessly through me yet severed the lamp just on the other side.

  I watched as that strange, unidentifiable metal flickered and doubled, almost as if I was looking cross eyed at it. It trailed ghostly, shadowy afterimages as my dad continued to spin it around. Then, he tossed it back in the direction of the desk.

  Now looking like a simple piece of mostly normal, solid metal again, the blade arced through the air to land on the far side of the desk. Before it could hit the ground, though, a brilliant arc of violet lighting shot out from his finger, going straight through the solid desk. Rather than destroy the furniture, though, it instead yanked the weapon right back into his hand—phasing clean through the wood in between and leaving it unharmed.

  Finally, he returned the weapon to its case. "None of what you just saw depended on my own abilities—only parts of its construction did. A newly awakened, Tier 1 Guardian could have learned to do the same. It's also unique. I'm sure I don't have to explain just how much we could get by selling it to a Tier 6 buyer."

  Yeah, no kidding. "I assume it's also ridiculously durable and all kinds of other useful stuff? He nodded. "Damn. Okay, are you saying that's one of the things I get to have if I sign up."

  "Pretty much," he confirmed. "With restrictions, of course. I'm not going to actually give it over to you outright—not yet, at least—and you're going to need to be careful. In a specific, narrow sense, it's currently stronger than you yourself at the moment. I hope you'll take my words seriously when I say that you could seriously injure yourself if you're not careful."

  My eyes lingered on the sword. "Duly noted." I had to keep the raw excitement out of my voice. With this demonstration, he'd already convinced me to join up—but I didn't want to look too eager. My eyes also flicked over to the other two cases. "So... what else?"

  The other goodies turned out to be less interesting but still useful. The small, sunglasses sized one had three little vials of a clear, just slightly yellowish liquid in them. Eating one was supposed to be able to satisfy my hunger in an emergency where I was on the edge of going feral again. Apparently, I would have gotten those regardless.

  Dad really hammered in that it was for true emergencies, though. He claimed they were very expensive to produce, even for Star Guardians, and he wasn't giving me three just to be stingy. I was willing to accept that, though oddly, I couldn't taste anything from them. I tried, of course, but it seemed like they'd thought of that and somehow stored them in a way that would block my Anathema senses.

  The briefcase was just a briefcase full of papers. It was a bunch of information that they thought might be useful for me when it came to infiltrating the cult. I hadn't taken a proper look at it yet, because we were just now wrapping things up on the Red Planet.

  After successfully recruiting me for the cult infiltration, Dad brought me back out of the house in a rover buggy thing. We spent about ten minutes driving over the rocky, dusty surface. We could have just portaled to our destination, yes, but I think he expected I would have fun driving around on the surface of Mars. And he was right, of course. I did have a lot of fun. Anyway, our destination was one of their nearby facilities. The entrance itself wasn't super hidden, but it was also small. I doubted any telescope on Earth would be able to spot it, and when I asked about the various satellites and rovers from different nations, Dad explained that many governments were already aware of their presence here.

  'They don't know the details of some of what we're doing,' he explained, 'but we can't hide everything. Our own faction has relationships outside of the inner circle of Star Guardians.'

  That became readily apparent when we entered the lab itself. The main guy I met with was a regular human, not even a Guardian. I didn't learn any names—more security, of course—but they did take a bunch of samples from me as well as put me through various tests. Some of those were basically the same tests the AAG people did, and I didn't bother to hold back on those. The whole process wasn't very long. I only had to spend about forty five minutes getting poked, prodded, penetrated, and violated in a dozen other creative ways.

  I'd wondered if we could somehow use those as the solution to my looming AAG problem. It sounded like we could, but it would take a bit of bureaucracy back on Earth that I would also have to be involved in. Great, definitely looking forward to that. It was a solution, though, so overall I considered it a success.

  Finally, a little under two hours in total later, Dad made a portal back to the penthouse on the other side of the solar system. There was one final thing we needed to do before that, though—bond with the sword.

  The process itself was simple. It was almost entirely Dad fiddling around with it, and then all I had to do was hold it for a few seconds. It was now supposed to respond to me and me only, and we spent a few minutes exploring the basic features.

  There were three main special functions. The first was the phasing thing. That was the most difficult, and I'd need to practice a lot with it to be able to have any confidence in replicating what he did with me and the lamp. The second was summoning it. That one was super easy, and once I managed to do it once, there wasn't much else to learn.

  The third and most dangerous was the momentum manipulation. As long as I was physically holding the weapon, I could massively adjust the mass. The range was completely ridiculous—I was able to make it so light that it felt buoyant or so heavy that it cracked the floor and I struggled to lift it even with my tremendous new strength. That was the one that was supposed to be super dangerous if I misused it. Good to know. I could already see some potential downfalls.

  Still, the potential to dynamically adjust the weight had immense potential—and I was definitely going to find someone to teach me actual sword fighting. I was pretty sure the AAG could help me with that.

  Now, though, I needed to get in touch with Katherine. Dad dropped me back at the penthouse, and to my mild irritation, he left before I could ask him to bring me over to her aunt's house. It had been a fairly long time since she'd seen me get snatched away, and she had to be super stressed. Poor Kitty Kat. Always getting stressed by everything. I decided to first try calling her on my phone. That would be an easy way to reassure her, as well as figure out if she was still where she was when Saber literally grabbed me off the sidewalk.

  Come on, Katherine, pick up the damn phone. My call just kept ringing until it went to a full inbox. I tried a second time, but I got the same result.

  That immediately made me think something was wrong. There were a bunch of panicked text messages and some missed calls, but the last one was from over an hour ago. If she isn't picking up and she stopped texting me—yeah, I was pretty sure something else had happened while I was away. Shit. I didn't like being the one who didn't know what was happening.

  Walking over to the bedroom window, I opened the blinds again. It was dark now—or it should have been, if not for the violet light streaking the sky in the near distance. Huh. Guess that explains that. My own building wasn't in the incursion, but it was fairly close—and the breaches were in the direction of Katherine's place. Well well well—now isn't that convenient.

  It had been a few days since I'd gorged myself on other Anathema, and the hunger was definitely back on the rise. I had no intention of wasting one of those precious vials—which meant another incursion was exactly what I needed.

  Alright, Katherine—I think it's about time for me to take the turn of playing hero. Epic new sword in hand, I concentrated.

  With an agonizing spike in hunger, gold threads wove over my skin like veins, constricting and thickening until I was covered in dull, dark gray plates threaded with intricate conduits of pale, slightly reddish gold. For a moment, I just stared at the slightly tarnished, unfinished surface. Something about the look of the material was snagging on something in my brain—but I decided to ignore it for the moment.

  Time was of the essence—and I was not going to miss out on a nearby incursion. Running over to my old bedroom, I dashed straight at the maintenance tarp—and for the third time in less than two weeks, I found myself careening through the air down towards the pavement below.

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