In the absence of clues I went home buoyed up with caffeine, thoughts full of the heist, ticking off what I knew to expect. It wasn’t much.

Powers couldn’t truly be stolen from people; they could only be suppressed. And it was only the ones we could actively control which were affected. That much was common knowledge. It was why we still didn’t age or die even when we couldn’t actively do anything a mortal couldn’t. Sometimes I wondered if it was a very specific form of induced brain damage, but that would imply that powers came from the brain, and the jury was still out on that one. Not that it was widely advertised, but when you put an insular community of immortal beings together, it was inevitable that someone, somewhere would volunteer to undergo live brain surgery in the name of either science, their ego, or both. I was willing to bet they’d found nothing useful, because a secret like that wouldn’t stay secret for long.

So rather than looking for powers, we would be looking for the suppressants. It was a far better scenario than the alternative, which might have meant we’d be up against someone or something who could use our own abilities against us. The first job was going to be figuring out how and where they were stored, and the obvious lead there was with the people with the most relevant authority. That would be Themis’ team, and although she was happy to dish out regulations like a chronic gambler at the slots, I wasn’t convinced she had the authority to oversee something with this much potential for catastrophic failure. She definitely didn’t have the tact. My money was on her boss.

Chief Human Resources Officer was Enki, who, as far as I could tell, seemed to genuinely empathise with mortals and gods alike, as well as those of us who found ourselves in that awkward interim state. I had him mentally placed in the ‘bullshit’ category much like Apollo, as there was only so much mangling of your internal logic you could do before you realised upholding Providence’s values was not in the public interest. If he had arrived at that conclusion, he was either a better actor than I gave him credit for or had a serious case of selective bias.

Once we began interfering at the C-Suite level, we’d have to use extreme caution. Another reason for all the advance tests. Shitface discovering the plan was the main concern, of course, but we couldn’t afford to underestimate any of the executive team either.

And that was where I started drawing blanks. I wasn’t sure what Tez’s investigation plan was, but he claimed he could do it and he had the right kind of track record. Which was to say he flew under management’s radar.

On top of which was the simple truth that nothing was impossible. Every rule could eventually be broken if you were clever enough. There was always a way – it was just a matter of finding it or, if there was nothing to be found, brute-forcing it into existence through sheer guile and determination. It didn’t mean it would happen, and this was obviously much harder without powers or connections to people with them, but the surest way to cement defeat was to assume it was inevitable.

Of course, in my case the magic solution was Tez. One also had to be realistic.

Nothing remarkable happened until I reached my apartment building, one of the towering-yet-boxy skyscrapers littering the skyline like well-behaved weeds. It was a relatively modern building in that it had been constructed within the last twenty years, but that wasn’t a positive thing. As the population rose, living spaces became smaller, and being what amounted to a charity case entitled me to somewhere to sleep and nothing more. It was the kind of building where you had to tread softly or you felt like you would put your foot through into someone else’s ceiling by mistake, and woe betide if you were a light sleeper.

Not an amazing location, either. It sat in the kind of dingy suburb where everything went dark as soon as the sun went down and it was hard to tell if people were lying down to sleep or die. There were some token street lamps lining the major roads, but it didn’t do much to instil much sense of life. In any other country, it would have been the kind of street ripe for muggings. In Singapore, it just made you think there might be a mugging, without there actually ever being one.

Perhaps because muggings weren’t far from my thoughts, I noticed the figure loitering outside my apartment door before she noticed me. Tall, muscular, and dressed the part of a criminal-in-waiting: all hard lines, cropped hair and the kind of shapeless unkempt clothes one might wear on the way to rob a convenience store. I didn’t recognise her.

From her impatient stance and the way she was clenching her fists, she was also out to cause some trouble.

There was a chance she wasn’t there for me, but I didn’t fancy it was a large one. My conversation with Durga was fresh in my mind, and this seemed to be another incident to add to the list. A shady stranger lurking outside my door? That never hap – well, alright, it sometimes happened. Not often, though. It fit the bill, even if it ended up turning out she was only there to sell me laundry powder subscriptions. Small things, Durga had said. It added up.

It could also have been Tez’s test. In fact, given this woman was a literal obstacle in my path, it probably was. Setting me up with a scenario ripe for conflict was very much his style. Of course, personal conflict wouldn’t be of interest to Providence. I’d have to find a way to spin the situation around to become a threat.

Well, it was time to see what we had in store.

The woman homed in on me like an owl as I approached. “Hey! You!”

I looked across at her with passable mild surprise. ”Can I help you?”

“Yeah,” she growled. “Are you with Loki?”

Providence didn’t have any explicit rules against telling people about its existence or revealing our identities. There wasn’t much point in making people sign non-disclosure agreements when there was no competition to steal your secrets, and if anything, having a few more mortals running around blabbing about gods walking the earth was as likely to help stave off the increasing incursion of atheism as it was to brand you as crazy, so it was generally left up to individuals as to how they handled it.

That said, I rarely used my real name outside of work hours. My passport and driver’s license listed me as ‘Sørine Krogh’, and most people I interacted with in my free time met that identity. She was useful for getting things done, and starting to build up quite the detailed backstory. But neither was I shy about talking freely to people I never planned on seeing again.

It was difficult to recall who I’d told locally. A bored cashier at the supermarket, a drunk on the train, several scam artists who’d had no idea who they were up against, and one very unfortunate religious recruiter. There had also been a few crazies on the street who had approached me for various reasons, which always seemed like a compelling invitation to out-crazy them. This woman was probably here because of one of them. Or the scam artists, if they were hanging out with people dressed like obvious thugs these days. Or maybe Tez had just asked her to turn up under the promise of bribes.

Either way, things had just gotten a bit more interesting.

“No,” I replied. “I’m here to see him. He didn’t tell me he was inviting another candidate around at the same time.”

She shot me a confused look. “Candidate?”

I raised an eyebrow at her in what I hoped conveyed a mild amount of suspicion. “You are here for the interview, right? I’ve got to say, it takes guts dressing down like that, but it does make a certain statement. He might appreciate that. Almost wish I’d thought of that myself.”

“Yes. Of course,” she said, in a tone that made it clear she was definitely not here for an interview, but didn’t want to reveal that in front of this woman-who-was-apparently-not-Loki. Much of her visible anger was fading, replaced with the telltale signs of mental resources being diverted to frantically construct a believable façade.

I pulled out my phone and made a show of looking at the time. “I’m ten minutes early,” I said, sighing. “What time does yours start?”

Her face looked like that of a deer caught in the headlights. “Uh, in twenty minutes.”

“Oh,” I said, casting my eyes downwards. “I won’t have as much time as I thought. Still, short and sweet isn’t a bad thing. Seeing as we’re in the same boat and all, would you mind if I practiced my elevator pitch on you?”

Grateful for the attention being taken away from her for a moment, she nodded. “Go ahead.”

Hmm. What to go with? I cleared my throat a little. “Miryam Krupnick at your service. Ten years’ experience in credibly actualising corporate partnerships. Specifically, I iterated on low-risk high-yield vectors meshing seamlessly with supply chains to deliver frictionless vertical synergies. This to an expanded array of best-of-breed clients across multiple impactful networks.” I let out a breath. “What do you think? Do you think that’s impressive enough?”

Obvious Thug was starting to go a little cross-eyed. “That’s, uh, yeah,” she said, floundering a little. “You know, you’ve pretty much just got this in the bag. I, uh, can’t really compete with that level of, uh...” Her brow furrowed.

“Oh, sweetie, no,” I said, putting a hand over my chest. “Don’t talk yourself down! The worst thing you can do is give in to imposter syndrome right before your interview. Remember, if you weren’t good enough, you wouldn’t have been invited in the first place.” I held out a hand to her and indicated she should take it. She didn’t. “Believe in yourself. Why don’t you start with your strengths and work from there? The accomplishments you’re most proud of. Have you reconceptualised anything recently? Come on, practice your pitch on me. We’ve got time.”

She looked extremely uncomfortable with the idea. This woman was built like a truck. She could deal me far more damage in a direct physical fight than I could deal back, which made her dangerous, but I had to hope she was either too wary or curious to try initiating one. Depending on how much she knew or suspected, it could still happen. However, I’d thrown her off-guard, a good sign.

She gave me a put-out glare. “Alright. I admit it. I’m not here for… whatever this is. That girl – guy – you wanna hire with? Screwed over my boss. Posted twenty-five mud-soaked puppies through his cat flap with blackmail notes strapped to their backs.”

I smirked at that. “That’s a lot of points to blackmail over,” I commented. “Are you sure you aren’t looking for a new job?”

“Probably the same one twenty-five times,” she grumbled. “All filthy lies. And yeah.”

Actually, they’d been unique letters, and quite truthful. One for everything I thought I could get him over, from illegal sex trafficking to insider trading to the fact he secretly preferred caramel apple martinis to whiskey. Contrary to popular belief, the greatest threat to your average underworld figure was not the law or rival criminal elements, but rather taking a hammer to their fragile masculinity.

A major shareholder in multiple casinos, this one had turned up on my personal task list under the mistaken impression I cared about the gambling industry. Instead of boosting his investments – not that I could – I’d reminded him gambling had wider definitions than casinos.

Also, I’d robbed a dog shelter. I’d always wanted to do that.

“I see,” I said, nodding seriously. “As far as deterrents go, you make a valid point. Puppy abuse is a serious red flag in a potential employer.”

Obvious Thug made an awkward cough and gave me the side-eye. I knew for a fact her boss hadn’t returned the pups to the shelter, or presented them to his employees as adorable, hyperactive gifts. Which might have been why I’d set his house on fire afterwards.

He’d collected the insurance money, technically increasing the value of an investment. As far as I was concerned, it had been a job well done, although perhaps signing my name on all the blackmail letters had been a bad idea in hindsight.

“Go home,” said Thug. “You don’t want to get involved in this.” We locked eyes for a good few moments, and I imagined I could see her hackles raise, much like the muddy puppies. “I might be forced to deal with you.”

I backed off a few steps out of arm’s reach, and held up my hands. “I mean, you could deal with me,” I said. “I’m in the market. Perhaps you could introduce me to your boss, and I could look at doing some extra synergising on the side. I’m not fussy about my clientele, as long as they can pay. And that’s -” I broke off, eyes darting toward the apartment door as if noticing something at the last minute, and dropped my hands in a hasty effort to compose myself.

As I’d hoped, Thug turned to face the door. As soon as her back was turned, I did what I should have done to begin with, which was to reach into my handbag and retrieve the small pistol lying within it.

It was the perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, or bullet in this case. Right in the back.