This world is a completed thing.

Thus, excess stretches the boundaries.

Thus, excess corrupts the mind.

Thus, excess banishes Y.

This world is a completed thing -- all that is needed to nourish the soul already exists here.

Thus, let resourcefulness guide your hand.

Thus, let retrieval be your watchword.

Thus, let Y be beckoned.

Hold these things to be true, and practice them body and soul, and without doubt the day will come.

The day when we all become as gods.

Central Tenet XIV, Humilist Library

Dragan staggered backwards as the upload cord retracted from his eyeball, winding back into Hamashtiel's body in less time than it took to blink. Shakily, he held a hand up to his face to check for injuries or marks, and was relieved to find no lasting damage from the interface.

"The first return from the Garden can be disorienting," Hamashtiel said softly. "Particularly the reset to mundane laws of physics. I'd recommend you lean on something until you're confident on your feet."

Best not to ignore the expert. Dragan planted his hands against the wall, using it to support his weight as he caught his breath.

A thought occurred. Had he left the Garden? How would he be able to tell? When he'd been inside it, it had seemed like reality itself, and now that he'd left there were no markers to differentiate the real world from the simulation.

No, no. Don't freak out. He shook his head as if to clear out the messy thoughts.

"So," Skipper said, staying completely still as the cord retracted from his own eye. "What do ya think?"

"Why'd we stop there?" Dragan asked. "With that Widow woman showing up… what happened after that?"

Skipper frowned. "Well, the next part wasn't really relevant, yeah? I was showing our buddy here what kind of guy the Supreme is. Don't need my whole life story for that, do we?"

"I guess not."

"Speaking of which," Skipper turned back to the spherical Hamashtiel, hands on his hips. "I'll ask again: what did ya think?"

Blue lights crawled under Hamashtiel's metal shell. "It was an interesting story, to be sure, but I'm uncertain why this was supposed to change my mind. I am aware that the Supreme enjoys fighting -- this is true for most people who rise to the top of the Supremacy's hierarchy. You have not provided new information."

Skipper narrowed his eyes. "That's all you got from it? You weren't paying attention. The Supreme's a guy who doesn't wanna be bored. He's desperate not to be bored. Once he runs out of things to do in his own space, he'll turn to you guys -- for the sport of it."

Green lights radiated within Hamashtiel. "Conjecture. He has not left his ship in nearly a decade. He is a man broken by his own overwhelming strength."

"He'll bounce back," Skipper fired off. "He always does. You saw it. He'd sit there, sulking for a while, then get up and find someone new to kill, yeah? What he's doing now? It's just longer sulking. If you think that makes you safe forever, you're an idiot."

The slightest red blinking repeated within Hamashtiel, then blacked out. "At any rate," the Paradisas said slowly and deliberately. "It is not my decision to make. I shall take your testimony to my superiors -- but I wouldn't get my hopes up."

Skipper didn't blink. "Sure. Do your best, pal."

Dragan pushed himself off the wall -- and felt glass crunch under his foot. He looked down, and saw the remains of the videograph screen they'd smashed before going into the Garden.

"By the by," Hamashtiel said mildly. "There will also be a bill for repairs. It will be with you presently."

Muzazi kept low as he prowled across the rooftops, blade in his hand.

The weapon he'd been provided by Lyons was no Luminescence, but it would serve. In terms of shape, it was more like a machete than the sword he'd previously used, and the black metal it was constructed from was a stark contrast to Luminescence's radiance, but it was sharp enough to kill. In the end, that was all that really mattered.

He'd been provided new gear beyond that by Lyons, as well. The dark coat he wore, strapped right around his torso, was well armoured -- even without Aether, the material alone would suffice to block a bullet or two. His boots, too, were designed to enhance his natural speed, responding to the impulses of his nervous system and bolstering them. Hopefully, even with his exhaustion, it would provide the edge he needed to match the challenges ahead.

This sector of the Menagerie's temporary 'city' -- constructed from vehicles and smaller ships docking into each other -- was garishly lit, holographic advertisements and signs scrolling through the air. His eyes focused on one spot in particular: the Ready Port, a small hole-in-the-wall on the second floor of the complex.

Apparently, Mila Green had booked a table there for the next hour. When she came to honour that appointment, that would be their chance to grab her.

"Are you ready?" Muzazi muttered -- even without looking, he knew his coworker was beside him.

Olga moved without sound -- neither footstep nor breath -- and even her audacious red scarf did not trail against the floor. Instead it waved higher up in the air like a snake, the end swaying beside her head. It was doubtless some kind of Aether Armament.

Slowly, her eyes fixed on the Ready Port, she nodded.

They waited there in silence for what seemed like a long time, waiting for Green to appear and enter the Ready Port. It seemed that she was running late, and so Muzazi found his fingers drumming along the surface of his blade anxiously.

This wasn't the first time he'd had to wait, of course -- but before, with Marie, the idea of patience hadn't seemed nearly as daunting. There wouldn't have been this kind of silence, for one thing.

He quietly cleared his throat. "I don't mean to be rude, Miss…?"

The girl's voice was hushed as the grave. "Olga."

"...Olga," Muzazi sighed. "But you seem very young to be doing this kind of work."

Her eyes didn't move from the restaurant. "Is it a problem?"

"Well, I don't know if I'd describe it as a problem," Muzazi shifted uncomfortably. "It's just surprising. Does your family approve of it?"

Olga blinked. "I don't have a family, Mr. Muzazi."

Ah. He'd chosen his words poorly. Muzazi swallowed down the awkwardness. "My apologies. I didn't mean to --"

"When I go to the part of my head where there should be a mother or a father," Olga continued, one hand stroking the length of her flexile scarf. "There's only the Supremacy. It feeds me, clothes me, and teaches me how to be a human. I guess that's what my family is, if you want to know. So they do approve, I guess."

There was no resentment in her tone, only a statement of fact, and even Muzazi could see she was telling nothing but the truth.

"That's an… interesting way of looking at it," Muzazi said slowly, choosing his words carefully.

For the first time, she glanced over at him, and her eyes were dull. "Is there another way of looking at it?"

"Well, I…"

Her stare was unceasing. "What's your family, Mr. Muzazi? Is it better than mine?"

Marie.

For a second, her face rose to the surface of Muzazi's mind, before he forcefully pushed her back down. He knew that if he thought of her too long, his knees would buckle beneath him. Apart from her, when it came to family, there was…

There was…

A sword glinting in the moonlight, gone. A pride in his rank and skill, empty. A drive to regain his honour, hollow. A brood of absences.

But nothing that could be called family.

In the end, Muzazi did not answer Olga's question -- and Olga seemed to accept that. Instead, her body stiffened as her eyes locked onto a single face in the crowd below, the end of her scarf tying itself into the shape of a taloned hand.

"No," Muzazi ordered, raising his hand. "We wait until she enters --"

"She won't enter," Olga interrupted. "People are coming out to meet her." She pointed down with a finger of fabric.

She was right, and Muzazi realized it the moment he looked ahead of Green in the crowd. Three men were emerging from the Ready Port, doing their best to look inconspicuous, but the shapes of concealed weapons beneath their clothing was unmistakable.

A bearded man with a red beret and sunglasses held up the group, while the other two wore patchwork Humilist robes and cloaks. The bearded man nodded to Green as they met in the ocean of the crowd.

"Hired guns," Muzazi mused. "Or maybe other Humilists? The cloaks would suggest the latter, but something seems off…"

"She knows them," Olga muttered. "Definitely. What do we do?"

Muzazi bit his lip hesitantly. Ideally, he'd have liked to follow Mila Green and ambush her when she was in a more isolated location, but if she was in a group that was a new risk all its own. It would mean giving the enemy time to establish a solid formation around Green, and could even make their job more difficult than otherwise.

This was their only chance to actually catch them off-guard.

"Mr. Muzazi?" Olga repeated.

Certainty. If nothing else, he had certainty. Confidence in his actions and his victory.

"We take her now," Muzazi said firmly, rising to his feet, brandishing his black blade. "I shall take the leader, you deal with the two behind. No matter what, Green goes unharmed. We need her. Understand?"

"Okay." Olga rose to her feet with all the grace of a ballerina.

Muzazi leapt off the roof, blade drawn, using split-second thrusters to adjust his path so he’d land in front of the bearded man. It didn't seem like he had any Aether defenses up yet, so a single swipe of Muzazi's sword should surely have sufficed to separate the miscreant's head from his shoulders.

As he fell, the bearded man growing larger in his vision, Muzazi drew his sword back for the kill --

"Must you kill him?" Nigen Rush asked. "Do you know him? Is he evil? Is his death necessary?"

-- and then flipped the sword on its side, smashing the flat end of the blade into the face of the enemy as he landed. There was a crunch as the man's nose shattered, and he went flying backwards into the crowd -- bowling over more than a few people.

"Huh?!" cried Green from behind him.

The two cloaked Humilists pulled out bulky plasma rifles from their garments, but before they could fire, Olga definitively settled matters.

Red fabric moved in the cruel light, forming a perfectly straight line, and shifted.

Death was instant. Even Muzazi couldn't help but be surprised by the efficiency of the killing -- and needless to say, he couldn't help but be disturbed by it's gruesome nature, either. Olga had sliced clean through the heads of her opponents the second she landed. Now, the crowns of their skulls remained balanced atop her scarf, cross-sections of brain exposed in the corpses as they fell to their knees.

She adjusted the angle of her scarf slightly, and the two body parts fell to the floor. The screaming from the crowds was deafening, the drive to flee was creating a near-stampede, and the Forgiveness Corps would doubtless be here before long.

Still, he had nothing to fear.

He’d reached back, after all, and grabbed Mila Green by the collar -- with such strength that even a machine couldn’t pry him free. He turned to look at her. Her eyes were wide with shock and terror, her mouth was a flat line of stasis, and the trembling of her body was enough to tell him that she hadn’t been expecting them.

Well, her fear was her own business. Atoy Muzazi had a job to do.

“You’re coming with us,” he growled.

When Mila Green woke, the first thing she was aware of was the rope tightly binding her wrists. The next thing she was aware of was the rope binding her legs.

Something was covering her eyes -- a blindfold, maybe -- so the only senses available to her were smell, touch and hearing.

She could smell some kind of food in the distance, or at least something burning.

She could feel a metal chair pressing against her back, the structure keeping her upright.

She could hear nothing save for the leisurely hum of an air conditioner.

What had happened to her? The memory took a moment to emerge from the smog of unconsciousness. She'd gone to meet with the mercenaries she'd hired to help break Helga out… and then she'd suddenly been ambushed by that man and child.

They must have knocked her out after that.

Who were these people? She'd put up a horrifying chunk of her savings to hire those men, and yet they'd been defeated in an instant. She struggled against the ropes, but they were still bound unbearably right. All she accomplished was hurting her wrists.

Should she call out? What would that even accomplish, except for angering her captors?

In the end, though, the decision was made for her. There was the creak of a door opening, and then the sound of footsteps entering the room.

"Hello, Miss Green," a quiet, calm voice said. "It's lovely to make your acquaintance. It'd make me very happy if you were to share some information with me."

Before she could even say anything, however, Mila felt a cold hand press against her face…

…and with a chalk-grey spark, all her worries drained away.