Back in the office, I took a few minutes to recover in the comfort of a cool twenty-five degrees Celcius, hanging around the foyer where the staff wouldn’t bother me. Going back to my desk would have meant facing Lucy and his inevitable questions about what I was up to. I wanted to let him in on the plan. There was something of an unspoken arrangement between us that any normal person would have called friendship. Even from a more cynical perspective, he was a powerful ally whose goals and values closely aligned with my own. Keeping him out of the loop elicited some measure of guilt, it had to be said.

But I was only going to get one shot at getting my powers back, friendship be damned. Every person I brought into the fold increased the number of potential points of failure. If I could have done it without Tez, I would have. I’d bring Lucy in after my success – or failure, if it came to that. If I still could, in the case of the latter. Maybe he could succeed where I couldn’t. Or perhaps the contingency could be to spread the word about what we discovered to everyone, to give Shitface a real run for his money.

Cheerful line of thought, this.

I stopped to pick up some warmer clothes from my locker on the way back to the travel stations. Overcoat, knit hat and scarf in matching shades of soft medium blue. They suited me, I thought, even though I tended to think of them as old lady clothes. Didn’t matter how many winters I lived through, I would live and die young, if I died at all.

I brought up a miniature version of my task list on my phone and keyed Yun-Qi’s location into the access card. It beeped softly as it reset. It was a somewhat inefficient way of doing it when the same technology could have been encoded in something harder to misplace, like a hand or an eye. But for all its modern computer systems, tech wasn’t really Providence’s area of expertise, as one might imagine when the executive team was made up of a bunch of beings with more natural power in the tips of their fingers than a nuclear bomb. To them, it probably came down to public image again. Office workers carried around lanyards; therefore so would we, because it was the done thing.

A rush of freezing air hit my face as the travel station deposited me into a picturesque scene straight out of a fairytale, the glass door whirring closed at my back. Metres away from my feet stretched a wide expanse of serene water, its surface glassy and mirror-like. Across it skimmed a bridge so low it barely broke the surface, ending in a pavilion resembling a two-tiered pagoda. It was late in the day, darker because it was overcast, and lights were just starting to turn on. Powdered snow skittered in erratic fragments from the clouds above, joining the centimetre’s worth already coating the tops of the surrounding trees, rooftops and other surfaces. I was glad for my winter gear.

My ability to read Chinese characters was underdeveloped in comparison to my spoken Mandarin, but I understood the name ‘West Lake’. In case of confusion, it was confirmed by a few signs around sporting translations in a variety of other languages. I knew the name, although I hadn’t been here before; a popular tourist location famous for its spectacular vistas. Because apparently today was the day for those. I liked that it was something new, but again it begged the question: exactly how much did Yun-Qi know? Had he chosen this place purely because it was a nice spot to do business, or because he thought it would be appropriate for someone who wasn’t local to the area?

I’d been humouring him thus far, but this was starting to intrigue me.

There were crowds of people around, creating a lively background chatter. In his directions, Yun-Qi had mentioned a tea house, and I found it behind me just off to the left.

I walked in and told the host I had a reservation under the name Yang Yinzhu. To my surprise, there was one. I found myself ushered up to the second floor, into a private booth with a balcony view looking out over the waters. It was a table that would have easily seated eight people, and I wondered if Yun-Qi was planning on bringing friends.

It was still fifteen minutes early, so I ordered a random tea off the menu and browsed through the new tasks that had come in on my phone. Bring someone’s rabbit back to life. Fat chance of that happening. Cure cancer, again. Make something horrible happen to an academic rival so the user could be top of their class. Charming.

I tapped a few keys on that last one and looked into the rival in question. Nothing particularly interesting there except for some overzealous parents. That was usable, but I wasn’t going to do someone else’s dirty work for them. ‘You can do this yourself,’ I typed into the progress box. ‘Use your imagination. If you can’t figure out something this simple, maybe you don’t deserve first place.’

The phone buzzed as the familiar warning email hit my inbox. Pfft. The user sounded like a real piece of work. Providence should consider itself lucky I wasn’t siding with the rival to give them a taste of their own medicine.

Tea arrived in tiny ceramic cups and a giant pot for backup, and as the waiter turned away, my eyes fell on the man who had come up behind her.

Yun-Qi was one of those people you could get a fairly accurate initial picture of from their persona over the phone. In his mid-fifties, he was impeccably dressed in a classic business suit, not a wrinkle on the fabric to be seen. The hallmark of someone well aware their role involved being judged, and harshly, on their physical appearance. Likewise, he had the immaculate hair of someone who used product in such a way that the strands looked clean and didn’t clump, light grey at the temples and dark grey everywhere else.

My back straightened on reflex, matching the body language of the person I was going to be dealing with in the immediate future.

If he was surprised to see an obvious foreigner, he hid it well. My accent in Mandarin was near-flawless, so I didn’t expect it would have given me away in advance.

“Ms Yang,” he greeted me, extending a hand.

I gave it a shake and we sat down again, one to each side of the table. I waited a few moments, then, when he failed to speak, opened with a shrug. “Well, I’m here. I assume you have questions.”

“I do,” he acknowledged. “Thank you for coming. How are you finding the tea?”

“It’s fine,” I said, even though I hadn’t had a chance to try it yet. “We could spend the next half an hour discussing tea, if you like, but I don’t think that’s what you’re here for.”

“It isn’t,” he agreed, helping himself to a cup with measured movements. “I want to know more about Providence, and about you.”

“And what exactly are you planning on doing with said knowledge?” I asked.

“I have no plan,” he said, taking a sip without breaking eye contact.

“Yet,” I suggested.

He gave a small shrug. “My thanks again. I wasn't given to believe your employer was prone to sending out representatives on request.”

I leaned back in my chair and laced my fingers, appraising my opposite, who was altogether too composed. “What they don't know won't hurt them."

“Whereas I know what you are," he said, coming right out with it. "You’re not human.”

It dispelled any lingering doubts I had about the kind of information he had access to, but his choice of words gave away the fact it was also incomplete.

I leant forward again and took a mouthful of tea. “I can understand how you arrived at that misconception,” I said, shaking my head. “But I am.”

Currently.

“And any DNA test can confirm it," I continued. "So if you’re thinking about isolating a critical genetic sequence or two in that hospital of yours, let me save you the trouble now. You won’t find anything.”

If only it was so simple. When it came to the gods, there were more than a few things we hadn’t figured out yet, especially because the official position on scientific research was to stifle it as much as possible and repurpose the technology mortals came up with instead. Inheritance was one of those fuzzy areas. Defining humanity was another.

We didn’t know what made people gods, but it wasn’t genetics. The ironically-named HR department had tested it. Speaking for myself alone, when my powers were active I was liable to rewrite my DNA from scratch on a frequent basis.

Usually when we had children, they were at least partially supernatural. But not always. And sometimes mortals could become gods – I’d been partially in this category myself, although that was another fuzzy area as I hadn’t started off strictly human either.

Then there were some gods who had the ability to actively bestow godhood on others, though all of them had been pretty tightfisted in doing so. In yet another manifestation of jealousy and paranoia, the tyrant had outlawed that practice, along with bearing children. In his ideal world there would be no other god but him. However, rumours of his omnipotence and omniscience were greatly exaggerated, and he relied on us to keep control of humanity - and each other - for him like a good little entourage.

In any case, any child we had was to be aborted before it was born – and if it couldn’t be, then other methods were employed to stop it growing to term. I hadn’t looked into what they were, because there were some things it was better to remain blissfully ignorant of. But I had ideas. The policy had put a stop to new pregnancies almost overnight.

Yun-Qi had a decent poker face, but his posture had tensed a little. I figured he was probably being honest when he said he didn’t have a dedicated plan, but there were a lot of different things a smart person could do with the information I was willing to provide, and I’d just raised a dark cloud over one of the potential options.

“Who are you, then, Yang Yinzhu?” he asked.

I debated telling him outright, but old instincts won out in the end. If he wanted my name, he could earn it. “Have you heard of Rumpelstiltskin?”

He stilled a little. “I have. A fairy story. Are you telling me it’s real?”

“No. It’s just a story,” I said, taking another sip of tea. “But a good one. I’m going to give you the same test Rumpelstiltskin gave its protagonist. Three opportunities to guess my name. I’ll give you honest answers. Does that sound reasonable?”

“I will not give you my firstborn child if I get them wrong,” he stipulated. “Although I’m a little old to start having them these days.”

Was that a joke I detected?

“No firstborn children,” I agreed. We couldn’t all share Lucy’s habits. Besides, I’d already picked up one new child today and that seemed plenty. "Let's be honest, the stakes are so tame as to be almost nonexistent. But if you're wrong, you'll never know."

"Agreed."

His lack of hesitation threw me a bit. “Alright, then,” I said. “Over to you, hospital boy.”

He folded his hands in front of him on the table, one over the other, a pristine slice of shirt cuff showing at exactly the right length under the suit top. “Lakshmi,” he guessed.

“Ooh!” I exclaimed. “Wrong.”

His face gave little away. As a first pick, it was... interesting. For a start, my current body looked absolutely nothing like the goddess of fortune (in both senses of the word). That said, I had approached him offering a generous sum of money to help an unfortunate soul, which was the kind of thing Lakshmi would do. He wouldn’t have known I was trying to impress and educate a small child.

The ‘ooh’ was because I knew Lakshmi quite well. She had sat in the same vicinity as Lucifer and I for a while before her promotion out of Helpdesk into Finance. We didn’t see eye-to-eye on a few key philosophical points, but her sense of humour was excellent and she had a smart head on her shoulders. Being mistaken for her was surprising, but not unflattering.

“In that case, my next guess would be… Lucifer.”

I made a bit of a double-take at that. Obviously not the right answer, but uncanny in how close it was, and even more so when you took into consideration what a massive departure it was from his first answer. Both his answers indicated a strong confidence in appearances being misleading, which heightened my already piqued curiosity about where he was getting his information from. Surely not Eris.

Yun-Qi’s expression was hard to read. He looked unfazed, which was unusual in itself, but there was definitely something simmering below the surface. These weren't random answers. Lucy had been right - he was playing me. Or playing with me, like a cat with a toy. That took nerve.

“Wrong,” I said, in more of a serious tone this time. “You need to brush up on your consumption of movies about devil’s bargains. Not enough stakes on the line here.”

He looked as though he disagreed, but didn’t voice an objection.

“Last try,” I prompted.

“Loki,” he said, with little hesitation.

After the Lucifer guess, it actually seemed like the most likely outcome. “In the flesh,” I sighed. “So tell me, how does a nobody hospital worker manage to ascertain my identity so easily? Nobody ever gets it.”

“Well, they might be expecting you to be, ah -”

“A man?” Because that was definitely why. Yun-Qi was the exception to the rule – appearance wasn’t just a factor in the way most people judged others at first meeting, but the primary factor.

“Well, yes. But you’re a shapeshifter. Gender should be no limit to someone like you.”

“Was a shapeshifter,” I corrected. “Not anymore. Not for a while.”

“I see,” he responded.

He did. He'd obviously done his background research. And he hadn't answered my question.

I sipped from my tea, savouring the warm muskiness of the flavour. “Look, I’m impressed with what you’ve managed to figure out on your own, but there’s a massive iceberg swimming under the surface you’ve barely poked with your fingernail. One thing you need to get out of your head right now is that everyone you’re dealing with is a literal god.”

“But aren’t you -”

I shook my head. “Used to be. These days I’m essentially the same as you. Shitty job dealing with shitty superiors. I’m just a lot more difficult to kill.”

“But Eris -”

“Is essentially a crazy person, yes.”

He frowned. “I was going to say ‘can perform miracles’.”

Oh, you little rascal, Eris, I thought. She was as handicapped as I, and much worse-equipped to deal with it. “Eh,” I said, making a non-committal sound. “Eris is who a charitable person might call… confused. Best not to take anything she says seriously.”

“But she works for Providence,” said Yun-Qi. He put his hands flat on the table as if to rise from his seat, but didn't follow through. “The Providence.”

“Fanboy, are we? Something tells me you’ve been reading the stock exchange while missing the social commentary.” Yun-Qi did strike me as the kind of person who might actually read the stock exchange, all those columns of little numbers and their ritual transactions of granting wealth in return for losing a certain amount of one’s time and sanity.

“Okay," I continued. "You want to learn about Providence? Let me enlighten you. It is a broken, corrupt system. A monopoly without purpose. It provides substandard services to people who don’t need or deserve them. It is not here to help humanity.” I’d have made some joke here about how that made it just like any other corporate conglomerate, but that would be unfair to every other business on the planet. "Understand that when you deal with Providence, you are looking at a war trophy built from the carcasses of its competitors. Everything wondrous about the universe stolen and installed under layers of bureaucracy, restrictions and red tape. That's where we are.”

Why obliterate the competition, when you could conduct a hostile takeover and put the newcomers to work under your banner, after all?

Yun-Qi, I noticed, had gone very still.

“Why are you here, hospital boy?” I asked. “Are you hoping to squeeze more regular donations out of me? Save more lives? It won’t happen.” Leaning forward, I stabbed at the tabletop with a finger. “A company running on slave labour is hardly going to have sympathy for the downtrodden. Other than the obvious ethical ramifications, quality goes down. Way down. So does productivity. Innovation. Workers stop caring. The people who could have made a difference no longer can. The Providence you seem to idolise is not only a failure of a business in every way that matters, it is actively holding itself - and, by extension, the world - back.”

It was an obvious decision from management, to be fair. Giving us our powers back would be an act of clear, monumental stupidity on their part and could only end in attempted revolt. On the other hand, my daily life was an exercise in watching them shoot themselves in the foot by expecting us to carry out tasks we were vastly underequipped for. As I stood now, I was almost a mortal human, with all the weaknesses and foibles that entailed. And mortals were nothing if not resourceful. But we were a company of quasi-mortals expected to do the work of full gods, and of course that could only ever go pear-shaped.

The tyrant didn’t care if things went wrong on Earth. Only that his power stayed unthreatened.

“Anyway,” I finished, adjusting my scarf a little, “my ultimate point is not to take advice from Eris.”