Today Margot found herself sitting in a much larger office space. She sat staring at a blank wall that held the three-dimensional projection of a universe devoid of the usual. stars, moons, and planets.

According to Monty and her superiors in the DPAA, right now that universe was just a mass of empty space that had been gathered from the cosmos and surrounded by a bare-bones framework of cosmic laws.

It was a semi-digital sandbox that had been handed over to Margot’s care along with one of the department’s consoles, and the case files and data for over one hundred thousand worlds.

On the desk in front of her was a folder. It was a copy of her personnel file. The folder held several pictures of her. It also held her birth records, social security, and a more in-depth copy of her resume. A broadly written, highly detailed, curriculum vitae, listing her academic career, the small number of positions she’d held, all the work she’d done as a player and an officer of the DPAA.

The final thing included in that folder was the description of her current job, and the certificate naming her Sub-Director of DPAA new Temporary office of World Reassembly. An office created in the rear instances that the House of Antipodes and the mortal authorities that worked beneath them came upon a world, or group of words that were destroyed but could by no means remain destroyed lest the hosting multiverse be destroyed as a result.

TLDR ...Margot was now the head of the new DPAA Department of Otherworld Reconstruction. As to why she was the one heading the department. Margot hadn’t the foggiest clue. After her last meeting with the Director of the DPAA, she’d been operating under the belief that it was only a matter of time before she had to leave the DPAA and potentially the US as a whole.

The long and the short of it was that the situation that the Director had described during Margot’s meeting with her had gotten worse. Much worse. A quarter of a million worlds had been pulled into what seemed to be a grand merger of matter and souls.

Right now, the distance between those worlds and the earth, and the grand turbulence, or “froth” that was being created by the process kept the people of Terminus-Earth from feeling the effects. However, if something wasn’t done soon, the people of earth could potentially soon find themselves going through an experience even worse than the Endless Night.

It was possible that their superiors in the House of Antipodes might reach down from their high and mighty place and do for earth what the earth had been doing for countless other worlds. However, considering that for the higher-planes the earth was likely just one terminus world amongst trillions, that thought was nowhere near as certain and reassuring as it could have been.

A circumstance that made Director Dillan’s decision to put Margot in charge of the operation to rectify this matter even more incomprehensible. Here they were facing a possibly world-threatening, multiversal disaster and they were putting the rookie in charge. An admittedly less than loyal rookie, considering her ambivalent feelings regarding the director and the department as a whole.

That didn’t make sense. Nothing about that made sense. This wasn’t some comic book or film where having moxy and the “right stuff” was enough to get an all-important position like this. In fact, it didn’t make any sense for the North American DPAA to be the only division of the UN’s Paranormal Authorities to be dealing with the issue. This was something that would affect the whole world if they failed. Shouldn’t it the rest of the world put some work in and have a say?

“Nh…”

“You’re overthinking this….” said a light voice.

Margot nearly jumped out of her skin. She hadn’t heard anyone come into the office. Never mind the office, she hadn’t heard anyone new entering the building. Which was quite a feat, considering how sharp her senses were now.

She turned around in her swivel chair and saw Monty sidling up behind her. His thick, dark-pink, hair slicked back against his scalp as if he’d just come out of a heavy rainstorm. The shoulders and collar of his coat were soaked through.

“Uh, hi...Didn’t expect to see you here,” said Margot. Her consternation fading in front of Monty’s reassuring presence.

“Mh, that’s fair...I didn’t expect to be here. I was working in the Arcadia Office when the Director and my least favorite cat-boy decided to stop by and tell me that the universe needs saving or some shit…”

“Oh, and then they sent you my way?”

“No...Then they gave me an option of working on no less than twenty-two different universe ending, multiverse shaking, calamities that were taking place and had been put on the North American branch of the DPAA’s plate,” said Monty.

“So you chose mine? Ah, how sweet…” said Margot. The corners of her mouth curling upwards.

“It’s no big deal...If you’ve got to be stuck in a bullshit job you might as well be stuck with friends…” said Monty. Tossing his shoulders and smiling in that slightly shaky way that she’d come to recognize as his embarrassment face.

“Honestly, you’re probably right about it making no sense that they’ve left you in charge of this, but they don’t really have that many people that A) they can trust and B) are competent enough not to fuck this up. They can’t just stop regular operations and they’ve already moved a lot of man-power to the other crises...So thus, you being the sexy hotshot you are, were exactly what the doctor ordered…” said Monty.

Margot blushed.

“I-, I guess that’d kind of make sense. Though I sort of feel that there were probably people more senior they’ve could have given this role to,” said Margot.

“Maybe they could find someone more seasoned, but they definitely wouldn’t find anyone more competent. I always already vaguely aware of your work but after reading up on your track record you’ve built up after only a year or so, I can see why they’d put you in the running...Also, not to toot my own horn, I suspect they already predicted that I’d join you...so….”

“Hm, I suppose that does make sense...You plus me makes for a dangerous combination…” said Margot. Frowning a little. Squirming in her seat as the word ‘combination’ randomly set a small fire in her undercarriage.

“The final reason you were probably picked over everyone else was that as big a deal as this is, it doesn’t have the same time constraints as the invasion of killer space-Anthozoa from Dimension E,” said Monty.

“Killer Space what?” said Margot.

“ Don’t worry about it...I actually might end up doing something about that myself, because I’m pretty sure I know their boss and I’m pretty sure they owe me a favor, but then that’d free up some of their manpower and leave you out of a job…” said Monty. Waving her concern away as he conjured a seat for himself and gracefully tossed himself onto it.

“The point I’m trying to make is that on a scale between global war and global warming, the problem they’ve left you to handle is closer to global warming. It could take years for the effects of all those worlds falling into chaos to reach us fully and even though we’ve got an idea of what the effects would be, and we know those effects will almost certainly be dire, the exact magnitude is a little hard to predict. So even though the situation is very bad, and the threat is still very real, it’s more of a long term threat... I imagine that Director Dillan, the Seth family, and their masters in House of Antipodes, figure that if you don’t get the results they need, so long as you don’t fuck up too badly, they can still send more people to take over and turn things around…” said Monty.

“Oh, I get it...So this position is important but not ...important. It’s an issue they need watched and mitigated, but not one that needs to be quickly fixed. And if we do succeed?” said Margot.

“Well, the employment contract for taking this job was pretty clear…If you succeed in creating a stabilized world to replace the ones lost in the merger you get to keep fifteen percent of that world’s assets, resources, and power as your own...with no complaint from the heavenly wills and the surviving powers-that-be…By the way, I get ten percent if you succeed…” said Monty.

“So in total if we save those worlds and help them stabilize into a new world, then one-fourth of those worlds’ resources will basically be ours…” said Margot.

“Yup ...How's that for some motivation?” said Monty.

“Nh...That sounds like a huge payoff...Is it fair to say it’ll also be a huge pain in the ass?” said Margot. Biting her bottom lip and glancing at the projection on the wall.” said Margot. Finding herself getting fired up and little intrigued at the idea of becoming one of the controlling powers of a world she’d helped create. Until now, the only fringe benefit she’d been able to take from her work was getting to siphon a bit of the raw cosmic power she was exposed to while she was rewiring the underlying logic for the various realities.

“Oh, yeah? Are you getting excited too, love?” said Monty. Smiling widely. His brilliant green eyes turning into dancing red flames.

“Maybe...Let’s just see how things go and take it from there…” said Margot.