***Tirnanog, Mount Aerie***

***Magnus***

Juliana Rumen slammed her palm several times onto the table. “Everyone! Return to order or I will start throwing out anyone who talks out of order! They will lose their vote for as long as they are banished from the Hall of Law and any decisions we make in their absence will be final!”

The chairwoman’s threat worked like a charm on the other elders and their assistants. Within seconds, the room returned to absolute silence. It reminded me of a class of naughty kids who had been brought to heel when they suddenly faced an authority person.

I found it somewhat reassuring to see the elders behave just as I expected it from politicians.

At least when they encountered something outside their realm of experience.

They had lost their shit when Astra presented them with our new core-control powers, the proof that mankind could dominate and abuse all of nature – not only Earth's! It was the first item on our list of several blows we intended to deal today to the anti-war faction.

Juliana returned her attention to the heart-core which was pumping in my partner's hand.

“How?”

“Tulkas found out that our control over electricity can be used in subtler ways than just blasting things,” Astra explained. “If we monitor the core while it's still functioning, we can mimic the necessary commands to make it work outside the host. We just found out about it. There's yet a lot of experimenting to be done, but I am sure you can imagine the boundless potential once we build up a more varied set of cores!”

She looked around the room with a confident expression. “Although, this isn't the real reason why we called for a meeting. We just wanted to share the good news before moving on to more serious topics.”

Another elder, Kayden Blare, caught on quickly. “You want us to know your potential. To establish the status quo and forewarn us about what we might throw away if we decide to slight you in what's coming?”

Astra neither confirmed nor denied his observation and instead sat down with a conspiratorial expression while Teresa stood up to take the stage.

“My daughter just wanted to share the wonderful news and fulfil her duty to the community.” Teresa retrieved a hefty stack of papers and handed it to me. “If you would give this to the chairwoman, please?”

I took the documents and carried them over to Juliana while doing my best not to add an excited spring to my steps. This was it. Teresa and Etan finally decided to put our cards on the table.

If everything went right, we would finally set clan Aerie on a course to rescue Evanne.

While I walked, Teresa began her unrelenting assault on the anti-war party's reputation.

“These documents contain information about how the third committed hundreds of poaching felonies in our hunting grounds. It draws a very concerning picture about how the third has bribed people and infiltrated my strata in a manner unacceptable to fellow clansmen and women. As proof, you have the testimonies of several hunters, plus a poacher who we caught red-handed! She is currently in the custody of the Tates.”

Juliana's lips drew thin as she looked through the documents. “You can produce these witnesses? Are you regarding this as a hostile act by the third?”

“Of course, I wouldn't bring this to the Hall of Law if it were otherwise!” Teresa spoke with total confidence while I returned to my seat.

The chairwoman's eyes focused on Bruce and Travis Patel. “Do you have an explanation? If this withstands investigation, your strata will be facing repercussions.”

Travis stood up while her partner remained sitting. “What can we say? Our strata is known for our back-alley deals. You cannot blame us for honing our skills.”

I almost did a double-take at the woman's bluntness!

“Honing your skills is one thing,” Teresa interrupted. “Stealing our hunting schedules and manipulating them is something quite different! Let me ask you, Travis, how much sensitive information from other stratas did your people collect? I am not talking about the support schedule for the next carriage run. We are talking about information which can be used to do some serious damage if it got into the wrong hands. You are lucky we haven't found evidence of murder – or I would have walked into your little throne room and brought the ceiling down. So far, we've only found indications of your people killing themselves by poaching in areas which are too dangerous for their skills. This in itself is still concerning.”

“We are elders!” Travis shot back. “Are you implying our hands are the wrong ones for clan-related issues?”

Etan leaned forward. “We aren't asking whether you, as elders, should have access to this information. I am sure that from one elder to another vital information concerning the clan as a whole can be shared. The point is the channel of communication! Why would the third need to establish a permanent information gathering network within other stratas?”

“Other stratas?” another elder perked up, showing suddenly a lot of interest in the topic. It looked like it had only now occurred to him that the spy network might reach farther than he thought.

“Don't listen to him,” Travis exclaimed.

Teresa blinked innocently. “Why, of course? I can hardly believe you would work so hard to undermine the twelfth specifically. I am not aware of some long-lasting vendetta between us which would warrant such a course of action. This means you should have at least a similar level of investment in other stratas. I wonder what we would find if we had your people's offices searched right now?”

Travis's lips curled. “This is a setup!”

“Of course, it is, dear,” Annie Kline spoke up while chuckling to herself. “I doubt there's anyone in this room who wouldn't recognize it as such. But we know Etan and Teresa. If they are so bold about this, then it means they already have a knife in your back and are ready to twist it. I for one, am inclined to let them indulge in this play. The Thich have to pay for what they did to my granddaughter!”

I followed the exchange, somewhat appalled at how candid the elders spoke with each other. It was only my second time at the Hall of Law, so I hadn't seen much of how the Aerie managed their business.

Then again, these people weren't just any politicians from Earth. I had to remind myself that the elders had likely known each other on a first-name basis for decades. They would know about each other's quirks and machinations, so there was no reason to pretend otherwise.

Travis's wings fluttered in apparent distress as she looked around the room. “Come on, people! You know exactly what we are dealing in! Why make a fuss about this now?”

Another elder from our faction, Trent Torres, spoke up. “The difference is that we are finding ourselves on the cusp of a new war, even if you and your people don't want to see it. There is nothing to be said about a good dose of friendly rivalry and maybe even unfriendly competitiveness during peace times. The latest revelations brought to our attention by the Tates have already proven that the Thich are up to no good. Another point I find questionable is allowing one strata to store another's vital information. Too much power in one place is seldom a good thing. Can you honestly say that you didn't go overboard in stealing from the twelfth?”

“We didn't steal anything they already had in their possession!” Travis defended her case. “We only used their schedules to evade their expeditions.”

“We've given them these hunting rights for a reason,” Kurtis Smyth from the eighth pointed out. “Mainly because allowing people without the twelfth's education and training to roam these areas produces far too many casualties to be sustainable!”

“Everyone should see to their security,” Olga White, a member of the anti-war faction spoke up. “It's evidence of incompetence if someone fails to keep their people in line.”

Elena Smyth stood up. “What a load of firehorn crap. We are one clan and I've yet to hear about someone being forbidden from switching stratas! Are we supposed to make a background check on everyone who chooses a new profession? To see whether a new employee has a history with certain stratas because we don't like their policies? Should all of us shun the seventh's services because they have access to the entire clan and might be able to spy or steal?”

Juliana raised a hand to gain everyone's attention before she turned her attention to Teresa. “What will I find if I have the Patel's offices searched?”

Teresa shrugged. “How should I know? From our witness accounts, the twelfth's complete hunting schedules should be the very least they have in their possession.”

“You want to play this the hard way, Teresa?” Juliana asked.

“I think everyone knows where my faction's ultimate goal lies,” Teresa pointed out. “My people stand completely behind Tate's analysis of the Thich's deeds. There is no other choice but to take action now while we still can. Clan Thich's experiments have to be stopped. At the very least we have to pursue an aggressive course of action which forces the Thich to show us their hand. And that means showing up with a fleet of airships at their borders. I think all of us know the Thich will play for time if given the choice. We see no other course of action.”

“This might lead us directly into a second clan war!” Hope Hall from the eleventh called out.

“It might,” Teresa replied slowly and looked around the room. “This isn't only about actual events. This is about what we didn't finish in the last war. We faltered in our conviction and now it comes back to bite us! If we hadn't limped back home to lick our wounds and mourn those we lost, we wouldn't have this problem today. All of us knew the status quo we left behind after the clan war would only end with the Thich getting bolder. It is our fault for following an isolationistic policy.

“All of you were there when the clans chose to turn the Old Camp into a neutral zone. Instead of avoiding Earth's mistakes, we allowed the Thich to pressure the clans into a peace treaty which favoured their ideology. Instead of learning from our mistakes, we created the soil for the next war. And look where we are today. The colonies were never intended to operate alone, but we still created rival city-states – countries! Do I have to explain to you where this will lead us a few centuries down the road?”

Bruce Patel placed both hands on his table and stood up. “War. Two large groups of humans will always end up warring with each other when they compete for resources. But do we have to be the ones to start it? Without more than insubstantial proof, I cannot start a war with good consciousness. Not even when I am being blackmailed!”

“Blackmailed!?” Juliana exclaimed. “Who would be stupid enough to blackmail an elder? And how?”

Travis hissed and pulled at her partner's sleeve, but Bruce pulled his hand away.

He gestured in our direction. “Can't I call it blackmail when they use their uncovering of our operation to sow distrust among our faction? On a level, I can forgive it. What's worse! They stole my cards!” Bruce pulled a sheet of paper from a folder on his desk and showed it around.

Someone had used the paper to stitch together a message from... glued cardboard?

I squinted and gasped when I recognized the origin. Someone had cut up magic cards and used them to create a stitch letter! Who would commit such sacrilege? Not to mention the cringe-worthiness! It was like someone had watched a few too many bad mystery thrillers!

A glint of triumph entered Bruce's eyes when he saw my reaction.

Hopefully, he hadn't misunderstood something?

“Vote for war and admit your crimes, or I will burn the Time Walk and waterboard the Black Lotus! This time, I used only the cheap cards to make this message, but next time I might cut up the Sneak Attack! I hope you can see my conviction through the nature of this message!”

Next to her partner, Travis face-palmed. “I said not to mention it, you dolt! You are embarrassing us with your card-mania again!”

Bruce shook the letter. “This is about a way of life! Either you are a collector, or you are not! Am I ever complaining about your mineral collection? Compared to your dirt, I'll likely never be able to get original MtG cards again! What if he had stolen your black diamond?”

“Crystals and gemstones are a completely different matter!” Travis hit her partner on the thigh.

I slowly leaned over to Astra while the two Patels began an argument over which of their collections had more worth.

“What's happening?” I asked, questioning whether I had somehow landed in the wrong movie.

It was Teresa who answered instead. “It's their mutation. It comes with an instinct to collect certain things and bring them to their nest. That's why their place is all shine and bling wherever you look.”

“Oh!” I winced and nodded in understanding upon remembering the over-dimensioned geode in which the Patels had made their home. It was the most opulent thing I had ever seen – rivalling my experiences on Earth. “They are like dragons.”

My eyes wandered over to the two arguing elders.

When my attention inevitably fell on their feathery wings which they had draped around them like cloaks, I couldn't help but make an addendum, “Or rather... magpies!”

Bruce, whose black plumage fit the image perfectly, stood ramrod straight and his eyes narrowed on me. “I heard that, thief! Now you are ridiculing me too?”

He jumped over his table and approached us with a livid expression and a finger pointed threateningly.

My snarky side wanted to remind him of what happened to the last person who pointed a finger in my direction. Alas, even with my recent training improvements, I wasn't certain whether I could deliver on such a threat.

Better to stay mum and stick to the plan.

“Bruce, control yourself!” Juliana began slapping the table again. The claps reverberated through the Hall of Law, showing the woman's brutish strength.

I raised both hands, palms out. “I am so sorry! Whoever stole your cards, it wasn't me! I know a fellow man of culture when I see one and I would never commit such a heinous act! It's a blow below the belt.”

“Look!” I bent down to the side and retrieved a wooden box from a satchel which I had brought with me – exactly for the possibility of this encounter. The box was a work of art, the lid covered with a ying-yang variant of the game's five mana symbols. It had taken a lot of time to describe the exact design to Gilbert and convince the weaponsmith to waste his considerable skills on a vanity item.

I held out the offering and opened it to show off the contents. “Now that I know your true conviction, this can barely be seen as an apology, but I had the second's best artists make a power-nine cube according to my memories! When I threw the guy, I underestimated my strength. I never expected to hit your table and damage the cards!”

Bruce blinked, somewhat mollified as he looked at the box in my hands.

Then his eyes narrowed. “You could be lying!”

“I am not!” I placed a hand on my chest and channelled my best version of a sworn witness. “You can have a mindreader look into my brain. This is the first time I heard of this thievery!”

Bruce looked around the room, apparently searching for volunteers. He considered the Tates for a moment but abandoned the idea because they belonged to our faction.

When the people avoided his eyes, I realized what the problem was. “You could have an elder do it too.”

They probably thought it beneath them to have an elder lay hands on someone lesser. On the other hand, Bruce knew sending someone on my level probably wouldn't cut the cake.

“I won't even throw him or her out of an elevator,” I said jokingly when nobody stepped forth and added after a moment of thought. “This time.”

Some intense glaring from Bruce followed and Hayne Ortega stood up with a sigh. “Okay, okay. I'll do it! This is just embarrassing!”

Thalia also got to her feet. “And I will stand judge, so you don't rummage around where you don't belong!”

The elder glared at Thalia, but made his way over with her and offered me a hand. “Quick! I don't have all day. I will have to ask you questions to focus your mind on what I need to know.”

I placed my hand in his and Thalia set hers on top of ours. Soon, I felt the familiar tingle which always came with a psychic ability being used on me. Normally, I would have freaked out at the violation, but it was a convenient tool to prove my innocence.

And I knew for certain I wasn't guilty.

Hayne shot off a few rapid-fire questions which were easily answered with yes or no. Things like, did you throw the Patel's man out of the elevator? Or, did you steal Bruce's cards?

A few moments later, he let go of me and turned to face Bruce. “He is genuinely sorry about the cards, Bruce. He doesn't know anything about your stolen collection. The apology is genuine.”

Hayne pursed his lips in incredulity before he added, “He isn't sorry about throwing your guy out of the elevator. He considered it self-defence.”

“It was!” I affirmed!

Bruce deflated at the confirmation of my innocence but still grabbed the box with the counterfeits. It was the next best thing to his originals.

“I will accept the apology. But then...” He turned and searched the other elders with his eyes. “One of you-”

“That's enough now, Bruce!” Juliana finally decided to reassert her authority. “You either get yourself back under control, or you will be the first to be thrown out of the Hall! We are not going to investigate some stolen cards! If you can't control the instincts which come with your mutations, then maybe you shouldn't hold the position of elder.”

The winged elder deflated and returned to his seat, but he took his consolation prize with him.

I let out a sigh of relief and smiled at Teresa and Astra who were eyeing me with suspicion. Thalia also had her narrowed gaze on me.

Feeling uncomfortable under the gazes of three beautiful women, I began twiddling my thumbs. “See? Told you that apologizing for the cards was necessary.”

Juliana massaged the bridge of her nose. “Where were we?”

“We argued about going to war,” her partner, Skye, reminded her.

“Right.” The chairwoman looked around the room. “Are there any more 'sensible' arguments someone wants to bring up? Or do we reconvene to investigate Patel's spy network?”

Astra raised her hand. “There is one more point to consider. Like the colony's supercomputer and its activities.”

To her credit, Juliana didn't even flinch or look surprised. Instead, she stoically stared at Astra. “I'll forgo the question of why this is the first time I hear about it – for now. Where do we have a supercomputer?”

“You are sitting on top of it,” my partner pointed out with a good-natured curdle in her tone.

Then Astra looked at me. “It might be better when Tulkas tells this tale.”

I stood up and cleared my throat. “Good day! May I re-introduce myself? I am going mostly by Tulkas nowadays, but back on Earth I was Magnus Elrod. Earth exiled me for collaborating with an organisation which the world government regards as terrorists.”

There was no point in hiding my history. Teresa and Etan had assured us that nobody in Aerie had any lost love for Earth.

So I quickly gave them the short version of my background story and outlined the organisation's goals before I got to the delicate part.

“...my main responsibility within the organisation was the investigation of certain disappearances. Often enough it concerned people who became inconvenient to Earth's government. But in some cases, there was no obvious reason. The only connection between cases was that the abducted were twins or siblings – often young and female.

“I followed the trail of the perpetrators around the entire world, only to find out that the people were secretly experimented upon and disposed of by adding them to the roster of exiles.”

When I looked around, I was pleased to find that every elder was paying very close attention. They had made the connection between Earth's experiments and the arrivals of innocent exiles.

“So my organisation engineered a set of circumstances to allow me to follow them into exile while they continued working from their end. I couldn't smuggle much with me, but I brought a data chip which contains all the step by step knowledge which is necessary to uplift Tirnanog to Earth's technology level.”

I let that sink in before I continued, “And it has the administration codes for the colony's central computing system.”

Everyone's eyes moved to the obsidian block on which Juliana and Skye Rumen had their desks as the elders' chairmen.

“And to shed some more light on the Thich's experiments, I was very surprised to find out the Thich were the ones who show the most interest in the abducted. Then I learned about their experimental mutation program. So I have to ask... is it a coincidence? Or are the Thich somehow collaborating with Earth by doing their dirty work with human experimentation?”

Juliana tilted her head. “It's a high tale you are spinning.”

“But if I am right, then you cannot afford to ignore me.” I pointed at the computer. “And this thing may hold another piece to the puzzle. So, let me take a look. You can decide afterwards whether you go to war or not.”

It was the first time for someone from the fourteenth, one of the three neutral parties, to raise their voice. Xina Lloyd spoke in a measured tone. “We should throw everyone out of the Hall before we proceed. Who knows what information the computer might hold?”

None of the other elders objected.

Most of the scribes and guards were expelled out of the room and less than five minutes later I was standing at the computer's maintenance port with all the elders watching me like hawks.

Everything was just as Astra had told me.

I inserted the data chip into one of the proprietary ports and held my breath when the login screen changed to 'Please Wait...'

If my people had done their job correctly, then the chip should contain an automatic startup routine to hack the login screen and give me access with the master code.

Instead of a login screen, I was rewarded with a registration form.

'Please enter your administration username and password.'

My hands flew over the small keyboard and typed my credentials twice before I hit 'enter'.

“What was the password!?” one of the elders exclaimed from the crowd.

Instead of answering, I only looked over my shoulder and made eye contact with Juliana, who was glaring at me. Both of us knew what I had just done, but it was on her to call me out for it.

She looked accusingly at Astra, but my beloved only shrugged.

The question was, would Juliana make an issue out of this? Or would she allow me this safety net?

The other elders seemed to refer to her in this case.

“Proceed,” Juliana declared after a few moments of weighing her options.

I returned my attention to the maintenance controls and switched the computer back into active mode before I closed the maintenance port. No more power saving for now.

The obsidian's entire front flickered and lit up, forming a gigantic widescreen. I took a step further away to see what I was looking at and grinned.

It had been so long since I had my hands on a genuine computer! “It would be awesome to watch movies with this!”

The comment surely caused some of the prehistoric fossils to glare daggers into my back, but I didn't care.

I recognised the OS immediately from my time at the university. It was a fairly standard open-source Nux derivate which was used in most research and production-related devices.

The latest updates might be missing, but user interfaces hadn't changed much within the last thousand years. The big OS companies had ruled the market for an aeon, but they could only keep their lead for as long as the hardware changed quickly. Once the development of newer and better hardware approached the bottleneck of physics in the late second millennium, open-source systems caught up and took over the market.

The operating system was reporting a whole smorgasbord of error messages about systems no longer responding. It was to be expected after the colonists recycled most of the peripherals.

“It looks like most external systems are down,” I commented while I manoeuvred through the touch screen. It even gave a little vibration feedback to confirm my input.

A few touches and swipes were enough to open an overview of running processes and system resources.

I clicked my tongue and pointed at the amount of opened connections. “That's weird. 38593 wireless connections. I thought you guys shut down most of the old tech?”

“I don't know of any old tech still running, but that's very close to Aerie's total population!” one of the elders behind me pointed out. “I know the numbers like the hairs on my ass!”

I doubted my ears but didn't question his wisdom. Instead, I went into the system resources and sorted the processes according to their network activities.

One immediately jumped to the top. It was solely responsible for the machine's network traffic.

“GenExMonitor,” I hummed and opened the guilty program from the task menu.

What appeared on the screen looked like the control interface for some surveillance software.

Somewhat lost, I clicked around for a bit until I found a database overview from which I selected a random entry.

What popped up looked like the information sheet of some D&D character – just a hundred times more complicated. There was bio-telemetry and geo-positioning information, plus a log of recent activities like meals eaten, sleep cycles, and other stuff which might be appealing to a medically interested researcher.

“What is this?” someone asked, aghast.

The Tates all came closer to eye the data entry, so I flung it to the side with a swipe. The screen was more than large enough for several people to work on it at once.

“This...” I licked my lips while I opened another entry. “If I had to take a guess, then I would say this thing is somehow wirelessly monitoring every person within its reach and logging the data. I wondered how Earth's scientists are getting any of their experimental data back to Earth. But if this thing protocols everything, all they have to do is to open a small wormhole and request an update...”

“How?” someone asked. “Did they chip us somehow? This must be most of our population! How did they get their hands on those who were born on Tirnanog?”

“The nanites,” Sienna Tate answered from where she was studying the data entry with her family. “We've done a lot of autopsies to research various mutations. One thing we learned is that the nanites do a lot more than just gene manipulation. They enhance the musculature of blank exiles and strengthen the bones. For this purpose, they build miniature nanite factories inside the body. I also always found a lattice-like structure in people's brains and in some cases all the way down the spine. I wondered whether it's a necessary part of the gene manipulation, but maybe it's an antenna for a wireless connection?”

I scratched my neck, feeling uncomfortable and somehow violated. Just how far did this surveillance system go? Should we put on tinfoil hats for privacy?

One thing I was sure of. If anything like this had been done on Earth and people learned about it, the government would have a real rebellion on their hands. Maybe that was why they 'outsourced' their more inhumane practices?

After exploring the program some more, I found the control options.

“It looks like I can terminate the upload process to Earth and mess with a few of the nanite's settings,” I commented before I stopped at something intriguing.

My finger hovered over the option before someone grabbed my hand.

“Don't!”

Juliana pulled me away with surprising strength. “Don't change any settings before we talk about it!”

“But it says: Unlock Personal User Interface!” I pointed out. “What if it gives everyone some control over the nanites inside our bodies? What if we can switch off some of their more inconvenient behaviour? Like using everything we eat as a new mutation?”

Maybe I could eat real food again!

Juliana glared at me as if I was an overeager child to her. “How would a 'Personal User Interface' work?”

I shrugged and thought for a moment. “I don't know. An iris interface would make the most sense to me. It's standard tech for the well-off back on Earth and is also based on nanite technology. The nanites manipulate the light receptors in your eyes to visualize information. It makes computer screens unnecessary!”

The chairwoman didn't look pleased with my explanation. “So, how should I imagine this? Some text appears in my vision?”

I nodded. “Likely.”

She spoke slowly. “Some text suddenly appears in my field of vision while I am driving a carriage? Fighting some monster? Working dangerous machinery? Working on a power line? I suppose it will happen to the whole colony at once when you set that option!”

I pursed my lips, then sucked them in as I considered the scenario she was painting. “On a second thought, let's not check any boxes before we haven't made a public announcement to the colony.”

The morning turned into midday before we managed to protocol and discuss all of the program's possible settings and the implications which would likely come with it.

It wasn't easy. We had no user manual and were messing with something that had control over our bodies.

After having the time to think about it, I was glad the elder had stopped me from pressing buttons. There was a high chance that making changes from this end of the application would alert our secret overlords.

The longer I thought about it, the more convinced I was that shutting down the entire surveillance system was the only safe option. Who knew what kind of backdoor access the program might give to whoever controlled this fucked up science experiment?

If Earth performed another remote shut-down, it might block our access for good.

By the time we called it a day, it was late in the evening. The elders hadn't made any final decisions on what they would do, but I was hopeful. The surveillance program had shaken everyone and we hadn't even begun to dig into the computer's system.

Nobody could say what other secrets it held.

“Do you guys think we are doing fine?” I asked once we returned to the estate.

Etan shrugged. “Before today, I would have given a vote a fifty-fifty chance to end in our favour. Now I am more confident. Your revelation might even cause the formerly neutral parties to take a side. And from the looks on Juliana's face, the Rumens might even take our side! It would be huge if the first strata joined our faction, like really huge. It would decide the vote because some stratas from the anti-war faction might just switch sides!”

We exchanged a few more thoughts, but nothing of importance. All of us were dead-tired and nobody complained when Astra and I retreated to our quarters.

I cleaned myself up and joined Astra in our shared bed.

Before long, she rolled over and circled a fingernail on my shoulder. She edged in closer and swung a thigh onto mine while her filaments encircled us.

Smiling, I took her hand and kissed it. Some might be turned off by a pregnant woman, but Astra never had that effect on me. “I would, but I am just too tired today, love.”

She didn't back down. “Confess!”

“Confess what?” I tried to keep a straight face, but I felt the filaments draw me close to her. She was like a boa constrictor wrapping up her prey. Filaments as long as hers were just unfair.

“You had someone steal Bruce's cards,” Astra clarified her accusation. “I saw you adding some additional instructions for the thieves who Teresa employed. Back then, I didn't know why you would want some cardboard box, but now I do! And you somehow managed to hide it from two telepaths. How?”

My smile froze on my face while one of my sub-identities finally re-integrated with the main 'me', bringing a whole set of thoughts and hidden plans with it. Plans I had managed to hide from myself by tasking another me with their setup and execution.

“Whew...hahaha.” I wriggled, but Astra had me in her grasp. “Why would I do such a thing?”

“Because you are the only person insane enough to steal a Patel's collection!” Astra rolled on top of me and pulled on my cheeks. “Do you have any idea how stupid that was? If he ever finds out-”

“Hew hill hot hind hout!” I slurred and pulled Astra's hands away from my cheeks to explain.

“He will not find out because I will never give the cards back.” I raised a fist to show my enthusiasm. “Those cards aren't just meant to play! They exist to be owned and collected! And Bruce is a real collector! I saw it in his eyes even before your mother mentioned his mutation. It was the way he held his cards during our game. He lost the moment he revealed what's dear to him. By taking away his cards, I have taken his soul! I have defeated him in a way which isn't possible with mere physical violence! And by giving him the cube, I've primed him to become our ally in the future! True collectors are no different from addicts! Take away their spice and make yourself the supplier and they will eat out of your hand!”

Astra blinked. “You are serious?”

“It worked, didn't it?” I grinned.