The inside of the mansion was stark white, emanating a sense of polished splendor. The entire back side of the main atrium was made of glass and looked out onto a small lake that hadn’t been visible from the driveway. Each piece of furniture looked like an expensive antique, and even the ceiling was decorated with exquisite crown molding.

Bath quickly expelled his essence into every corner of the room. After locating a vent, he began to circulate his essence through other areas of the mansion.

He smiled darkly to himself: his long-range manipulation was improving. Once such a useless skill, long-range manipulation was now one of his most useful tools for engaging in subterfuge.

After a few seconds of circulating his essence through the mansion’s vents, Bath realized that the house was even more enormous than its exterior implied. The upper level of the house had countless rooms, most of them living quarters. But the basement...that was a veritable labyrinth. Bath nearly sighed out loud in appreciation. How did this group of people actually construct such a basement without being stopped for housing violations? Even he would be hard pressed to gouge out such an enormous warren.

The basement’s overlapping pathways stretched for several kilometers. While Bath’s essence continued to progress through the basement, it eventually reached the end of his range at some point under the lake. So: the basement actually went below the bedrock?

While he gained a sense of the mansion’s general layout, Bath began installing little eye and ears throughout. After doing so, he immediately gained a better sense of how many people were stationed in the building.

He was shocked by the number. While there were a few humans in the building, nothing caught his attention more than the twenty-two non-human lifeforms he detected in the subterranean complex.

Bath’s eyes constricted and he had to consciously control his heart rate. Angelina was oriented away from him as she lead them out of the living room foyer, so she didn’t see. But Lisa’s face turned utterly ashen.

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She had never seen that kind of look on Bath before. He looked...as though he were starving, and a feast was laid out before him. She became incredibly nervous: Not because they were in the headquarters of a suspicious organization, but because she had no idea what could put Bath into such a state.

She bumped against him and gave him a look. Bath’s expression returned to normal, though by virtue of knowing him her entire life, Lisa still detected a remnant of bestial desire in his eyes.

“Bath,” she whispered under her breath, knowing that only his enhanced ears would pick the sound up. He continued to look ahead after Angelina, giving no sign that he had heard her. Lisa breathed in deeply. “I don’t know what you've discovered...but be careful.”

Now Bath looked her way. He just smiled, but it was the smile of winter as it lulled people to sleep under snowy covers. The smile of the wolf among sheep. A little mouth appeared behind her ear.

“Lisa,” the mouth hissed softly. Lisa felt as though a snake on her shoulder, whispering into her ear. She shuddered. “They have alien lifeforms in this house.” Lisa jumped as though the imagined snake had bit her. Her eyes grew wide, though she quickly controlled her composure. All this time, she had kept careful control over her shell; only now had her control lapsed.

She wasn’t too concerned with the lapse: feeling uncertainty in the headquarters of a mysterious organization was natural. Or at least, she thought, uncertainty should be natural. Unless—she turned to look to her left—you were a primordial lifeform like Bath who feared nothing and no one.

“Angelina,” Bath spoke up, his voice calm. “Will we be heading to the basement to meet up with the others?”

Angelina turned back and gaped. “How do you...?”

Bath laughed coldly. “Come now, do you really think Lisa and I would enter your headquarters blind? I, myself, am quite interested in your...fishing collection.”

Lisa really didn’t know much about the mansion, but after hearing Bath’s assertion that the house held alien life...She understood why he associated the lifeforms with the organization’s mysterious “fishing.” While fishing for alien lifeforms seemed incredulous, so did manipulating people’s emotional shells.

Angelina’s lips tightened until her mouth was nothing more than a slash. Lisa herself felt intimidated by Bath’s dauntless demeanor. Though she knew that he was making everything up on the spot, it seemed as though he was totally in control of the situation. She decided not to speak for now and give Bath space to make a powerful first impression.

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“You're the bodyguard?” Angelina asked, her voice strained. Bath could tell that she wanted to ask more, but was restricted by her role as escort. He knew, based off of a few conversations amongst people in the basement, that Angelina’s role was to welcome them in, dazzle them a bit by showing them the wealth of the house, and then, finally, lead them into the mansion’s cavernous underbelly.

Bath decided that he wasn’t going to let their plan come to completion. In this kind of situation, where the stakes were high, Bath felt an overpowering need to be in control. More than anything else, he wanted to dominate this organization. They had something he wanted, something he was desperate for.

New life.

Life on Earth had long since grown stagnant...even after a few more millions or billions of years, Bath didn’t have faith that it would change significantly. At least not enough to interest him. He had felt that Earth was on its way out when he peered up at the icebergs and saw them melting like popsicles in the sun, a time scarcely twenty years ago. His intuition had been that Earth had reached its pinnacle and that the future was a downhill slope.

Feeling this, he had followed his instincts to prevent Earth from realizing this decline, eventually deciding to assimilate into human society.

But now...perhaps there was another way to get what he wanted. To devour more, to sate the endless hunger of his Center, a hunger that he had learned to ignore long ago, a hunger that now burned. The few alien species in the basement were driving him literally crazy.

He manually controlled his salivary glands and heart rate as he contemplated what hunger he would feel were he to step foot on an entirely new planet. Though Bath’s head was embroiled in a storm of thoughts, he continued presenting his facade.

“Yes, I’m the bodyguard,” he replied.

“It’d be better if you didn’t speak about things you shouldn’t know, even if you have a defense against us,” Angelina said, voice saccharine.

Defense against them? In a moment of clarity, Bath realized Angelina must be referring to his peculiar black-hole shell.

“Angelina, why don’t we go to your dining room?” he suggested, disregarding her poorly-disguised warning. Bath knew the dinner wasn’t supposed to be for at least another half hour, but this was precisely the point: he wanted to put Ritus’ members off balance.

“While we’ll eventually have food downstairs, why don’t we first—"

“Angelina, Lisa and I are absolutely famished. Is there really no way we can have something to eat now?” Bath now let a bit of his current ravenousness seep into his facial expression. Just the tiniest bit of this hunger made Angelina flinch, fear sweeping over her face.

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Lisa saw a hint of fear tinge Angelina’s shell and smirked. Based on Lisa’s own strength, all the mind manipulators in the house would have been able to sense the flicker in her shell. She couldn’t feel all the mind manipulators, especially the ones more powerful than herself, but she already sensed perhaps one-hundred of them on the premises. Lisa hoped that they would view this fear as a treacherous weakness. After all, who let their shell display fear while giving a diplomatic tour of the headquarters?

“I suppose we could go to the kitchen...” Angelina said uncertainly, obviously aware that there would be repercussions for her poor control.

“Forget it,” Bath said somberly. “It’s fine. Let’s go to see your fishing collection downstairs," he said, leaving no room for disagreement.

Sighing dejectedly, Angelina assented and led Bath and Lisa down a set of winding stairs. The staircase was made of high-quality wood and gleamed glossy in the overhead light. The staircase went down for a minute and a half before the group reached an archway covered by a silk drape. The three of them passed through the drape and into a square room with several doors. The room itself was quite stark, lacking any furniture. Bath knew that this room’s purpose was limited to connecting the downstairs labyrinth together.

Angelina led them towards a door Bath knew didn’t lead to the alien species.

“Angelina, where are you taking us?” he asked icily.

“To the trophy collection.”

Bath laughed softly. “I asked to see your fishing collection, from fishing,” he clarified with a callous grin. “Is this animal collection the very same one?”

Angelina swallowed, her face sallow. “I don’t—I think we should meet with the organization heads before I bring you anywhere else,” she muttered. In a complete breach of plan, she led them to the dining room area. Now, the twenty-three Ritus heads that were present sat conversing around pitchers of water and two bowls of fruit.

Bath’s eyes lit up. “Ah, thank you for the food, Angelina!” he said, the “sincerity” in his voice foreboding. Angelina shook her head brusquely as she speed-walked to her seated elders and faced Bath and Lisa.

“Finally,” Bath heard her whisper under her breath. “Time to ditch the black-hearted monster.”

The twenty-three elders surprisingly regarded their guests’ arrival with minimal shock, especially considering that they hadn’t expected the duo for another half hour.

The elders encouraged Bath and Lisa to each take a seat and, soon enough, all parties were seated in the room’s luxurious dining chairs.

Bath decided to munch on fruit while the humans busied themselves with introductions. The people in the room were, for the most part, giving him absolutely zero attention while they focused on Lisa. Angelina, however, kept her gaze firmly locked on him. She felt as though if she looked away, she'd be killed, which didn’t make any sense...yet this was what her instincts told her: Keep your eyes on this man at all costs.

She knew, beyond a shadow of doubt, that this man was far more dangerous than they had anticipated...Bodyguard? What a joke. The cold, killing intent she felt radiating off of this guy reminded her of a master assassin they’d once hired. Except...this bodyguard, he felt a little...unhinged. Which only terrified her more!

And yet, she had no way to inform the people in the room about the snake they’d let into their midst.

All this flashed through Angelina’s mind while the apparent leader, Al Jessup, began explaining Ritus to Lisa. The man was young, likely late-twenties by his appearance. In fact, nobody present appeared to be older than thirty-five. Jessup looked like he could be Angelina’s older brother with his straight nose and angular features.

Why, then, did they all refer to themselves as elders? Bath wondered.

“Based off of what we know about you, we assume you already possess a rudimentary understanding of kursi,” he began.

Now Bath trusted Lisa to handle the smooth-talking.

“I do know a bit, though my understanding has lots of holes. Can you give me an overview from the beginning?”

Jessup smiled, showing teeth. “Of course! The first kursi originated in Ildr.” Lisa’s eyes flickered to Bath’s.

Ildr?

“Right,” Lisa nodded.

“This is because Ildr was the epicenter of the second great Outward Expansion. While most kursi symbiotes remain dormant, the one that lives within you is a queen. It is what gives you the ability to influence the mental states of other sapients.”

Bath wondered why (or if) Ritus expected Lisa to know anything about Ildr or the Outward Expansion.

“I'm still confused about how kursi are able to manipulate other lifeforms,” Lisa interjected.

"Ah! So, every living organism within...Jan, what’s the current projected radius now?"

A woman looked up. "Something like 2.3 nonillion light years," she replied stoically.

“Ahem. So, within 2.3 nonillion light years of Ildr, all organisms have been seeded with the kursi symbiote. However, on average, only a few will ever actually be queens. And because queens can only awaken in host sapient species with mental synergy ratings, or MSRs, above a six...active kursi hosts life you, or me, are quite rare.”

“Mental synergy rating of six?” Lisa asked, keeping her voice neutral. Bath thought she was being an excellent actress.

“Humans rate very high on the scale. We're actually an eight,” Jessup grinned. “We only know about worlds who have organisms with an MSR at six or higher since they’re the only ones with active kursi. You can’t open a gate unless you have an active kursi, after all.”

Bath couldn’t believe that Jesup and the Ritus elders were so casually telling them all of this life-changing information. Hearing that there were countless worlds stretching out from some place called Ildr was...

Well, it was going to change quite a few things.

“How does gate travel work, exactly?” Bath asked, inserting himself into the conversation. “I understand that you use gates to ‘fish’ for exotic alien species.” All this time, Bath had been carefully analyzing and cataloging the lifeforms in the basement. He came to the conclusion that they had been “fished” from two separate worlds.

“Gate travel is under wraps, sorry to say,” Jessup sighed. “Only official members of Ritus get access to that kind of information. Fungsoeng has been trying to steal our gate for a while now, and has even tried to replicate it without success. We must ensure loyalty and confidentiality before exposing such secrets. You understand, don’t you, Lisa?”

The man replied to Bath’s question through Lisa, as though Bath wasn’t worth even a speck of attention. By this point, however, Bath was too busy to care: he began to use his essence to experiment with something that he and Lisa could use to speed up the Big WD. After all, now that Bath knew that there was an easy way leave Earth, he was no longer satisfied with Lisa’s slow, conservative plan for taking over the planet.

“Can we see the aliens?” Lisa asked. “I won’t trust that you have a working gate until I see physical evidence.”

Jessup shrugged. “I suppose we can bring you both to the Menagerie. Everyone else, feel free to wait behind. Angelina, accompany me and Lisa.”

Angelina’s eyes never left Bath as she got up and followed the ensemble out of the dining room. While Bath knew the girl suspected his behavior and mannerisms, he didn’t care.

There were entire worlds just beyond his fingertips! He felt his Center vibrate with longing.

The group arrived at a steel, vault-like door at the end of a long hallway. Jessup used a finger and eye scanner to verify his identity, then opened the door and let them into the Menagerie.

Bath saw Lisa’s jaw nearly drop to the ground. There were hundreds of animals enclosures spanning the absolutely massive room. Each one was completely sealed off from the outside, assumedly to ensure the organisms were able to live in conditions mirroring that of their home worlds. Only around a quarter of them were currently stocked, but Bath could easily envision the entire room filled to the brim with alien life.

“How did you discern their natural habitats?” Bath asked sharply. Sensing the organisms through his essence and actually being in front of them were two different things entirely. Bath could feel his control begin to slip. “Could you actually see the world on the other side of the gate?”

“Yes; how else could we capture them?” Jessup snorted.

“Have you ever gone into the gate?” Lisa asked, extremely curious. She had no idea what gates were, but clearly they allowed travel between remote regions. This kind of discovery...she wanted desperately to know the science behind it.

“Go into the gate?” Jessup frowned. “You should know that it’s a death sentence.”

“Oh? Why?” Lisa pushed.