2016-09-07: My Apartment Manager Is Not an Isekai Character

[robkelk]

My Apartment Manager Is Not an Isekai Character

by
Rob Kelk
Brent Laabs
Robert M. Schroeck

with
Robert Thompson
DartzIRL
Inquisitive Raven
Rajvik

---

"Present Day. Present Time. HaHaHahA!"

Washuu Hakubi
Washuu's Lab

On this planet, they called it the monomyth, but it had other names among the multitude of races in the galaxy. Some called it the "tale of tales,” while others called it "the path passing the gods." But the elements of the story of a hero's journey remained astonishingly similar across nearly all of the races that Dr. Washuu Hakubi had encountered. And the ones that didn't? Well, they were all an exceedingly tedious lot, whose cultures' only story tended to be along the lines of "we will gloriously exterminate everyone else." Dreadfully boring, and boringly dreadful, she believed.

She had first come to investigate this field of inquiry while thinking about Tenchi Masaki, which was the favorite pastime in the household where she had found herself the past few months. All of the women there, without exception, had a romantic interest in Tenchi, but Washuu had an academic interest in him as well. It had started as a scientific investigation, as she assessed how his power had developed. But as she began reading the literature of his home planet for fun, she began to see similarities in those stories to Tenchi's experiences, and to other stories from distant worlds. And soon, she found her research reaching deep into the humanities.

Perhaps her research would have stayed in the humanities, if she hadn't noticed the letters.

Washuu first noticed the abnormality in Tenchi's bioreadings when she brought him down to the lab. Why a young human-Juraian like Tenchi Masaki was emitting 7th dimensional pulses was the first question. So, she set up more sensors, and strapped him back down in the lab. She found there were energy pulses in the 8th dimension as well. They appeared to propagate through the 9th, 10th, and 11th dimension, off to places unknown. Washuu always had an instinctive grasp of higher dimensions, a trait that almost no one living in 3-space shared. There was probably a reason for that, but if so, she had forgotten it. Still, her special insight was enough to keep her in good with the mathematics and physics faculty, despite her specialty in medicine.

Washuu put up remote sensing equipment to investigate further; no one really understood what she was up to, but that was pretty normal around this household. The energy emissions from Tenchi got stronger whenever something interesting was happening. It spiked during the time when he used light hawk wings, of course, but sometimes all it took for a pulse was Tenchi getting in the middle of one of those idiotic squabbles between her daughter and her daughter's princess friend.

Moreover, it turned out that everyone in the Masaki household was now emitting this energy, including Washuu herself. And it was far above the baseline emissions she had recorded for herself long before coming to Earth. It wasn't anything special to the planet – Tenchi's classmates hardly emitted any higher dimensional energy, nor did the mailman – ruling out those confounding factors.

Just on a hunch, she plotted the pulses together in real time on her computer. Columns of green glyphs flowed down the screen, leaving behind glowing trails in their wake. She realized the implications immediately, saying aloud, "That makes a pretty cool screen saver!" But she knew she could come up with a better visualization with more signal processing.

An hour or so later, the task was completed. She now saw the letters, colored streams gently floating across space and time, heading outside the 3-dimensional universe as we know it. Some of them were letters she recognized, but a lot of them were incomprehensible glyphs. Yet there was always some pattern, some form of repetition or style. Something that implied language.

She was able to translate some of the unknown glyphs with the help of a fan website devoted to a fictional television show. Apparently there was a constructed language for a fictional race called Klingons; the phrase "Upstanding Cardboard" in their tongue kept reappearing in outgoing letter streams. From what she could glean from the online fandom, she supposed it to be some kind of pun in their honor-based society.

What she was looking at was the first evidence she ever had for metafictionality – fiction represented in the natural world. And if she was right, Tenchi was at the center of his very own story, his own hero's journey. She tried explaining this to the others, but all they got out of phrases like "Tenchi's metafictional linguistic membrane" was that Washuu was also interested in making out with Tenchi. Which of course she was, but that wasn't the point! Philistines, the whole lot of them.

So she did what any self-respecting scientist would do, and began to experiment on the streams of letters. She tuned equipment to generate the extradimensional pulses, to see how the universe would respond. She first generated random sequences of glyphs, but they seemed to evaporate into the ether before going anywhere. Replaying Tenchi's sequences did seem to go elsewhere in the multiverse, even if she introduced minor changes, though streams didn't always go in the same "direction."

Then she got bored, and was thinking about that new Sailor Moon show that Sasami liked, and just for the heck of it, imagined her in the role. Her AI put together a quick story about Magical Girl Pretty Sammy who was secretly Sasami, and it was all pretty ridiculous, but Washuu fed it into her extradimensional transcription machine, and for some reason that got a big reaction from outside the universe. The same happened to her AI's fic about Tenchi, Aeka, and Ryoko all going to university in Tokyo. As if, right? Washuu only wished she could get Ryoko interested in higher education. But curiously, it was working nearly as well as the true stories of the Masaki clan. Something was pulling it outwards into the multiverse.

The past few weeks researching this had been pretty fun for Washuu, all told. Her extended family didn't quite share her passion for research, but they all tolerated it fairly well. She was more passionate even than her daughter Ryoko – she just channelled it much better. Ryoko had turned out to be a big brat, but when circumstance forces you to miss your daughter's childhood, what is there to do? Washuu did what she could. Tenchi was good for Ryoko. So was Aeka, honestly.

After dinner with the others (and the inevitable post-dinner flirting), Washuu excused herself and headed back to her lab, a planetary-scale extradimensional space anchored to a simple door under the wooden stairs. As she entered, a crab-shaped bell made a dull ring. She pulled up a floating seat-cushion, and began typing into a holo-force interface.

Tonight's experiment would be about attracting and sampling letter streams from outside the universe. So far, she had evidence that they existed, but attracting any for sampling and measurement had proved elusive. Her equipment had, however, observed the letter streams reacting to Ryoko's use of the red gems. There were three red gems that had accompanied her when she was born into this world, their power matched only by their mystery.

So she did the obvious thing and had hooked one of the gems up to her devices to attract letter streams. She turned the device on, patched through the gem, and started to collect data. Nothing. She waited. Still nothing. That should have worked. She tried lots of variations to the energy output and waveforms, but accomplished little into the wee hours of the night.

The redhead hopped off her pillow, and boarded a conveyor down to another level of her lab. She stepped into a room full of computers, dishes, optics, receivers, and signal processing equipment about the size of the Masaki family home. She lifted up a panel to look over her latest addition to the device, revealing a single red gem, the size and shape of a marble, mounted in the machine through a series of parts with complicated names. It all looked right to Washuu; it just wasn't working. "Oh come on! Work already!"

And so it did. The gem glowed brilliant red. She pulled up her holo-force terminal, and watched as the letter streams started pouring in. She was getting so much data, it might take weeks to analyze. She had a big smile on her face until an alert flashed on her screen: Dimensional turbulence was exceeding safe levels for the laboratory. Her smile turned into a frown immediately. She had to stop the experiment! Since she was in the lab where the machine currently was, she dashed over to a wall, and pulled a physical breaker. The external power disengaged, and her gem was removed from the circuit.

Dimensional disturbance stabilized. The pocket dimension containing her lab remained intact. She breathed a sigh of relief, and decided that was quite enough drama for one night. She popped out of her lab for a moment and looked around. Everything seemed fine with the house, and Ryoko was fast asleep in her customary position across a wooden support beam. Seeing nothing amiss, she finally headed to bed.

Washuu was right that everything inside the house was quite normal. If she had only looked out a window, she would have noticed that instead of carrot fields, there was now a whole city out there.


Xander Harris
Sunnydale, California, United States of America
May 22, 2001
5:50 AM PDT

Xander shielded his eyes against the brilliant blue-white light emitted by the roiling hole in the universe, hanging in the air just below the top of the ramshackle tower Glory's victims had built. "C'mon, Buffy, just get Dawnie down from there." He squinted, trying to see past the crackling lightning and the glare to make out the two figures atop the shaking structure. Buffy's white sweater was actually easy to see, but between Dawn's hair and the dark gown in which she'd been dressed, she was almost impossible to make out. "What are you waiting for?"

"No doubt they are deciding how to close the rift." Giles appeared by his side, also shielding his eyes and looking upward. He sounded... odd to Xander's ear. Nothing like his usual lecturing tone, but softer, more melancholic. Xander glanced past him, to where a still figure lay upon the ground.

"Glory?" he asked.

Giles drew in a deep breath through his nose and let it out. "Dead. Quite sincerely so."

Xander looked back at him, his eyebrows raised. "Did you just quote The Wizard of Oz?"

The older man huffed. "Don't be ridiculous. I... Oh, good Lord... Buffy, no!" he shouted.

Xander whipped his gaze back to the top of the tower just in time to see Buffy leap off the end of the platform to dive with arms spread into the hole. As she plunged into it, it erupted into a violent, roaring explosion of thunder. He stood frozen in shock and denial as Buffy seemed to take forever to fall into and through it, wrapped in lightning, her mouth open in a silent scream.

Then just as the first rays of the rising sun reached out to touch the top of the tower, the rip in the universe exploded in a flash of brilliant light.


Jenn Brozek
638 Wasatch Drive, Fremont, California

In a bowels of a laboratory with bright blue walls, two renegade mad scientists sat working on robotic monstrosities, each hoping that this machine could kill the scientist on the opposite end of the room. Or, in other words, Tuesday in the suburbs of Fremont, California. These inventions were frequently successful – in fact too successful, resulting in quick round trips through the fires of the Pit for both men.

But, also being best friends, the one with curly brown hair and a white lab shirt spoke, "You know, I'm tired of fighting off all of these robots from other dimensions, trying to steal our toasters."

The scientist with the blond pointy hair – hair so impossibly forward pointing that it could only be produced by Science – replied, "Yeah, me too. They were all pretty annoying. Except the one, 4N-D1, she had a pretty sexy chassis."

"Goddamn it!" Casey had hit a sore spot. "Can't we do something about this?"

"You mean like an invention to stop the incursions... permanently?"

"Exactly," Andy said. "We'll show those other dimensions, we'll show them all!"

And so the work of science and engineering began beneath Wasatch Drive, designing and building a revolutionary device. On the surface, the neighborhood at the foot of the Coast Range was pleased that things had been quiet for over a month. Perhaps Jenn had finally gotten through to the those scientist chuckleheads, or so people thought – but other than Jenn, none of them were brave enough to actually ask.

Some weeks later, Andy Weir gathered a group of his closest enemies and friends, and led them down the stairs to the secret laboratory. By this point, all of them had been inside the secret laboratory before, but a true scientist never skimps on drama before the reveal of a world-changing invention.

Casey Grimm greeted the crowd of neighbors (and future serfs), "Greetings, ladies and gentlemen. We gather here today on a momentous occasion. I am humbled to present an ingenious invention that will change the world! The scourge of the Calculons will soon be a thing of the past!" This didn't excite the audience too much, since the interdimensional robots mainly had a beef with Casey and Andy, and left everyone else alone.

Andy pulled back the curtain to unveil the duo's latest creation. A large metal rack held a six-foot-tall shiny steel box, with an attached dish antenna, dozens of multicolored indicator lights, and a decal in black reading DIMENSIONAL COLLAPSE-O-MAT. "Behold! We have developed a solution to the dimensional incursions," he paused for effect, "forever!"

Casey remarked, "I see you are all too stunned to applaud."

The Quantum Cop offered his analysis, "Collapsing thirteenth-dimensional waveforms will simply cause all the universes to share the same probability wave. That will just cause the Calculons to be shifted to our dimension. As well as parts of every other universe."

Stopping to consider if he should, Andy pondered aloud, "So wait, if all the universes average out..."

Casey said, "That means Andy will become..."

Andy looked dejected. He sighed, "Sorry everyone. Okay, time for plan B."

Jenn Brozek put her palm to her face. "I can't believe you called me over for this. I'm going home. Come on, honey," she nudged the Quantum Cop.

At about this time, a butterfly flapped its wings past the machine, causing Cujo the cat to raise a paw to cut the beautiful insect to tatters.

Andy cried out, "Wait! Bad Cujo!"

And the cat's paw swiped down, flipping the Dimensional Collapse-o-mat's giant lever to the "ON" position.

Jenn and her boyfriend instantly disappeared from the room with a tiny pop. "Well, that was anticlimactic," Andi said.

Casey pointed out, "Dude, you have boobs!"

"Oh God damn it!" The worst had happened after all, the one formerly known as Andy thought: the averaging of multiversal counterparts had rendered Andi female.

But the worst was yet to come. In another corner of the lab, the open flame of a Bunsen burner quickly flared up to two meters high, from which emerged a curvaceous redhead, horns on her head and flames in her eyes. Levitating down to the ground, she accused Andi, "Darling... what did you do this time?" The flames behind her remained on the "broil" setting.

Meanwhile, Jenn and Quantum Cop apparated in the middle of the rainforest. It was something those two had done, to be sure. One moment they were in the lab, the next they could feel the oppressive heat and humidity of another place altogether. Birds sang in the trees, as light filtered through the forest canopy to the lost world below. Jenn asked her lover the obvious question, "Where are we now?"

Quantum Cop pointed behind her to a massive scaled reptile chomping off the leaves of a banana tree. "My best guess, it's Isla Nublar."

Jenn turned her face up, and screamed out at the top of her voice, loud enough to scare the sauropod, "ASSTARDS!"


Shinji Ikari
Tokyo-3
After Third Impact


He didn't run away.

He didn't run away.

He was right there, looking at the sea of LCL that was what remained of humanity. Was he in that sea? He didn't know. He couldn't know. Right now, he was on the beach. Alone.

Then he supposed that not joining everybody else was just a different way to run away.

Fuyutsuki had said that it was up to him what happened to everybody.

Everybody kept pushing responsibility onto his shoulders. First his father with Eva-01, then Misato with the apartment, and now Fuyutsuki with the entire human race.

"Why me?"

There was nobody around to answer.

All he really wanted was to be happy. He still didn't know where to find happiness. But he'd figured out that it wasn't here. What was he going to do here? Rebuild everything the way it was, maybe adding somebody with a light heart who would fall into his lap and like him for who he actually was? No, that was a wish that he knew could never bring him happiness. Happiness wasn't something that was handed to him.

He just wanted to run away.

But the events that lead up to Third Impact weren't all bad. He'd made some friends in Tokyo-3.

But he could have made different friends if he wasn't forced to become an Eva pilot.

But being an Eva pilot gave him a purpose.

But being an Eva pilot put his classmates in danger.

But ...

No. No more buts.

If the reality of the human race was up to him to define, then he had better get around to defining it. He'd been thinking about this for what seemed like a year; it was time to get it over with.

Don't just rebuild the world; redefine it. No, revolutionize it! No Third Impact. No Second Impact. Just an Earth where somebody could venture over the wall around one's own heart without risking being hurt, and interact with others on a fair basis, with love – and justice – not like the relationships that his father had manipulated him into. A place where he could spread his own wings and take to the sky, instead of being forced to plod along the ground in a role that other people chose for him. Maybe a place of wonders, where science and magic could meet and then stories would begin, but that sort of whimsy might be too much to ask for, even if it was a small wish. But definitely some place where the horrors that he and Asuka and Rei had gone through could be imagined, but as nothing more than a story. He so dearly wanted to live in a place where today was always the best day, he could enjoy everything, and everything would surely be all right.

And maybe a place where he'd have a chance to meet somebody with a light heart who would like him for who he actually was, and would tell him "you belong"... but not just fall into his life. He'd have to work for that person's friendship. Maybe start with sharing some tea, after school.

School. He wanted to be able to go to a normal school in a normal town. He so wanted a normal life, with no Evas... well, unless he really had to pilot one... and absolutely no Angels for them to fight. He'd served his term; he just wanted to be normal.

But he also wanted a beach to sit on, to remind him of the year that he'd wasted here. No, the year that he'd spent here, figuring out just what it was that he wanted.

Then there was a flash of light, the LCL disappeared, and Shinji was no longer on the beach.


The War Doctor
The Drylands, Gallifrey
The Time War

"I've seen what I needed," the War Doctor said softly. "The Moment has come." And though he made no show of it, some long-ago part of him still delighted in the pun. He lifted his gaze back to the Moment's Interface which, still in its blonde humanoid form with her ripped and ragged clothing, had appeared next to a steel shelving unit. "I'm ready," he told her.

"I know," her ghostly voice echoed, and he found himself back in the barn in Gallifrey's Drylands. In its center, where he had left the brass and wood box he had known as the Moment, now stood a pedestal that seemed to be sculpted of grey stone, topped with a truncated pyramid inlaid with sculpted brass straps and surmounted by eight petals of a stylized flower, also of brass. From the center of the flower rose a brass rod atop which was a massive red gem. It glowed faintly, lit from within.

As he studied the device, the Interface appeared on the other side of it, and he looked up at her. Fixing her eyes on his with a sober, almost somber expression on her face she said, "Well, you wanted a big red button." There was a short pause, no more than a breath's worth of time, and she continued, "One big bam! And no more Time Lords. No more Daleks."

He looked back down at the glowing gem. "I was sure when I came in here. There is no other way."

"You've seen the men you will become."

He glanced up in surprise. "Those men? Extraordinary."

She smiled. "They were you."

He tore his eyes from hers, dropping them again to the gem – the trigger. "No," he replied with a tiny shake of his head. "They are the Doctor."

"You're the Doctor, too," the Interface said earnestly.

He shook his head. "No. Great men are forged in fire." Reluctantly, he lifted his gaze to meet the Interface's eyes again. "It is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame." He drew a shaky breath. "Whatever the cost." And before he could change his mind or be persuaded by the Interface to stop, he struck the gem with a solid blow, driving the rod on which it sat down into its pedestal as the Interface began to cry "No!"

When it could travel no further, Gallifrey and all that surrounded it died.


September 7, 2016
Tenchi Masaki
Vancouver, BC, Canada
6:01 AM PT


The Masaki family house was quite large, even for a farmhouse, but considering how Tenchi Masaki tended to attract off-world women, that was for the best. Three storeys of wooden construction offered more than enough room. The white house was topped with blue Japanese tile; the layers of the roof were not stacked haphazardly like a McMansion, instead evoking a traditional pagoda but with more modern lines. And a modern house it was, with a wall of windows in the living room offering a view of a wooden deck that went out quite a ways over the lake.

The house was quite a fine looking structure, designed by Tenchi's father, architect Nobuyuki Masaki. It perfectly suited the fields and mountain valley for which he had designed it. The only problem was that it was not currently sitting in that mountain valley.

Tenchi began his morning routine early, as farmers have done since time immemorial. The light of daybreak woke him from sleep, and he started preparing for another day. Yet it took Tenchi only a glance out the large circular window, from his bedroom on the top floor, to realize that he was not going to get any carrot farming done today. There were green hills to be seen in the distance, but they were less prominent than the skyscrapers peeking over the trees across the lake.

He rushed down the stairs and, seeing no one in the living area, turned back towards the kitchen. Having stayed the weekend in the country, Noboyuki was up early too, pouring a cup of coffee in the kitchen before his drive back into town.

Tenchi told him, "Dad... the lake's changed, and the mountains are gone."

"What?" He took a sip of coffee, then added, "Again?"

"Yeah!"

Nobuyuki took a peek outside the kitchen windows, and saw a paved road nearby. Across this street was a parking lot for some athletic fields. "Well, maybe now I won't need that apartment in the city." Things exactly this weird had happened before, given the company his son kept.

And then a car passed by, casually driving on the right side of the street, which was definitely the wrong side of the street. Father and son looked at each other for a moment, then called out in unison, "Ryoko! Ryoko!!"

A voice from the rafters replied groggily, "Wha'sa matter?"

Tenchi laid down the law, "Get down here now, Ryoko!"

"A'ight, fine," she yawned. Her hands stretched up briefly, and she sat up from her usual sleeping position on the wide wooden beams crossing the living room. Ryoko was the kind of space pirate to wear an articulated cat tail as a fashion accessory, so it made a certain kind of sense. She phased through the beam, reappearing a mere second later, floating gracefully to the ground. "What is it?" She was not in a good mood from being awoken early.

"The whole house was relocated. Again."

"Really?"

"Don't play dumb. Why did you, um, abduct us again?"

"What? I didn't."

"You didn't?"

"I'm not that kind of girl, Ten~chi~," Ryoko purred.

"But... last time!"

"Exactly. It's just no fun to do naughty things to you if you're not awake!" Ryoko said demurely, squealed softly, and then covered her mouth in utterly feigned embarrassment at being so forward.

Tenchi simply facefaulted.

"You cheeky boy, so early in the morning..."

Aeka stomped down the stairs, projecting, "I should have known it would be you making a ruckus so early in the morning." Despite having been woken up early, she had taken the time to comb out her hair and don a yukata.

Ryoko stuck her tongue out in disgust.

Nobuyuki filled her in, "The house got moved to a new place last night."

"Oh ho, I see. And Lord Tenchi caught the culprit in the act!"

"Culprit?" A blonde woman coming down the stairs perked up. She was followed right behind by a teenage girl with cyan twintails.

"Yes, this unattractive space pirate has taken Lord Nobuyuki's noble dwelling once again, and is guilty of grand theft house!"

Ryoko growled, "Now see here..."

Mihoshi Kuramitsu of the Galaxy Police turned her head to look all around the room. "But the house is still here." She had even checked.

"Exactly!" Aeka grinned. "And just where is 'here'?"

Mihoshi chirped, "Tenchi's house?" Sometimes when Aeka got worked up, she made no sense at all.

Tenchi decided to nip this thing in the bud, explaining to Sasami and Mihoshi, "The house got moved to a different place overnight." Looks of understanding appeared on their faces.

"And we all know who does that," Aeka accused.

"I wouldn't have had to do that – last time – if some annoying princess hadn't come in guns blazing at poor Tenchi."

Aeka gasped at the insult, which gave Tenchi the break in the conversation that he needed. "We don't know where we are, but I'm worried it might be far away."

Ryoko had had enough of Aeka for this early in the morning, and volunteered, "I'll go take a look around, then." She floated up and disappeared through the ceiling before anyone had a chance to comment.

She was only gone for a few minutes, just long enough for Sasami to start preparing breakfast, before she drifted back in with her report. "It sure seems like Earth out there to me," Ryoko observed, "but I don't remember stripes on the Japanese flag before." She unfurled a flag she had stolen from the top of a flagpole.

The red spot in the middle of the Japanese flag wasn't a maple leaf, either. Noboyuki concluded, "Canada?!"

Tenchi's grandfather stepped through the front door, and said in his gravelly voice, "Yes, Canada. And Funaho is planted here." Katsuhito Masaki left his geta sandals in the genkan, and made his way inside. "Very curious," was what he said, but his voice was full of concern.

Ryoko, still displaying the Canadian flag proudly in her arms, said, "Don't look at me."

Everyone would have turned to look at her, but a door clicked open behind them, immediately followed by the soft clunk of a cowbell shaped into a decorative crab. Dr. Washuu Hakubi emerged from her extradimensional closet under the stairs. "Good morning, all. Why is everybody looking at me?"

Tenchi began, "The house seems to have moved to a foreign country overnight. Do you know anything about that?"

"Ohhhhhh," she realized. "Shoot."

Aeka demanded, "Explain yourself, Washuu!"

"Ah, well, you see, I was running an experiment last night, and I was near a big scientific breakthrough, you understand."

"Go on..."

"And, well, the particle emitters started to get out of control, and things got a little out of hand. But everyone looked fine last night!"

Katsuhito sighed audibly. "Can you take us back to Japan?"

"Well, Japan, yes, that's the easy part." Everyone held their breath, so she continued, "But given the higher-order physics involved, at the particle energies in the eighth dimension, you see..."

Ryoko told her mother, "Just spit it out already!"

"Maybe there's a small chance of a possibility I sucked Earth into another dimension."

Mihoshi broke the silence, "Oh, okay!" It always helped calm people down when you acted like you understood the situation. That was like basic police training.

Ryoko grabbed her mother by the collar; which was easy because Washuu always chose to appear in a childlike form. "What the hell, Washuu!"

"Washuu-kaa-chan," she corrected.

"Not the time."

"I mean, maybe I didn't and everything is okay?"

Aeka rushed up the stairs. She had to check. As much as her relatives were a royal pain in the ass sometimes, she couldn't really imagine being separated from her people. How could she be a princess of Jurai without Jurai?

In the time that she was upstairs, Nobuyuki also stepped out of the kitchen, and Sasami had somehow herded everyone else around the breakfast table. At least Ryo-Ohki – a small rabbit, cat, and masser hybrid – seemed as cheerful as normal, adorably trotting behind Sasami as she carried out plates from the kitchen.

Aeka, on the other hand, seemed just as worried as before she left. She sat down at the table. "Washuu-chan, I just tried to contact home. And I can't get anyone from Jurai on the ansible. No parents, no Space Force, no Galaxy Police. Nothing."

"Hmmm." The diminutive scientist reasoned, "If we were the origin point of the collapse, then the effect should be simultaneous."

"So they're never going to come? Waaah, I wanna go home some day!" Mihoshi whined.

"No. Simultaneous means that it shares the same light cone. Jurai is light-years away from Earth, so I wouldn't expect them to appear yet."

"So you're telling me I'm stuck on this rock with the likes of her," Aeka pointed at Ryoko, "for another 108 years?"

"Ugh, Tenchi and I are never going to get some alone time, are we?" Ryoko complained.

"Now, now. That's only the worst case scenario. Depending on the curvature of our home universe, it's possible that the effect will spread faster through the manifold containing the universes. Or more likely, someone with a fold drive tries to travel near Earth, and blam! collapses the local vacuum into this universe."

Aeka said, "So if we hear from Jurai again, we don't even know when it's going to be. Just great."

Tenchi noted, "Actually, that's just about normal for us."

"I'm sure they'll make it to this universe, too," Mihoshi said, hopefully. And Washuu winced a little inside, because Mihoshi's statement made it that much less likely there would be a quick solution to the crisis.

"It's not that bad, Princess. It'll be just like the time you crashed Ryuu-Oh into that bridge."

This riled Aeka, "You're the one who crashed our spaceships! You!"

"Nee-sama, please sit down and eat." Sasami said. "We can't fix things on an empty stomach."

As they gathered around the table, Nobuyuki returned to the room, a portable radio in his hand. "Washuu-chan, is whatever you may have done last night blocking radio waves? I can't hear the morning news," he explained while holding the radio up for everybody to see.

"It shouldn't. Earth is right here with us, so local signals should be getting through." Washuu-chan continued in this vein for a few minutes, spouting a fine grade of technobabble in a doomed attempt to distract everyone else from whose fault the current situation was.

Tuning out the back-and-forth of the conversation, Sasami continued serving breakfast to everyone. She'd already figured out that Washuu-chan didn't know how to fix things; if she did, she would have been in her lab, fixing things, instead of talking about the problem. She hoped that Tenchi-niisan would figure out what to do. If he couldn't, then Katsuhito-ojiisan – also known to her and a very few other people as Crown Prince Yosho of Jurai – should have some good ideas. And if even he didn't know what to do... well, then Sasami supposed that she'd have to ask her other self for advice. She really didn't want to bother Tsunami, but she would if she really had to.

"Well, then," Nobuyuki commented after hearing Washuu's explanation, "why can't I get a signal?" He turned the radio on, getting nothing but static.

"We aren't in Japan any more," Washuu answered. "You need to tune into a different frequency." Using his thumb to turn the tuning dial, he finally found a morning news station. The host was interviewing somebody from a "Squamish Nation Marine Group", and they were talking about a boat show that was starting the next day at some place called "Mosquito Creek Marina".

It took them a moment to realize that, while the interview was in English, nobody in the room was having any trouble understanding it. Not even Ryo-Ohki. Not that anybody found this to be at all unusual, considering that they never had any problems communicating with anyone else; to misquote someone in vaguely similar circumstances, for them it was Wednesday.

As he finished his breakfast, Tenchi said, "My school doesn't know that I'm overseas. I hope that Kazuhito-san remembers to take good notes for me today."

"Oh, I know! I'll give him a call for you!" Mihoshi always knew how to be helpful. She stepped over to the telephone mounted on the wall, and picked up the receiver. After hearing the dial tone, she said, "Now what was Amagasaki-san's number again?" She punched no fewer than fifteen digits into the phone before it began to ring. She must have gotten the number right, she decided.

As soon as the other side of the line clicked open, she began, "Moshimosh! This is Mihoshi-chan. Can Kazuhito-san take notes for Tenchi in school today?"

After a pause, she said, "Oh oopsies."

Another pause, as she started playing absently with the phone cord. "You relieve goddesses? That's very nice of you!"

"Oh, that's nice too."

"Why yes, we have." Mihoshi got an intense look on her face. She absently paced in circles, wrapping the phone cord around her self. "Ah, thank you very much!"

Mihoshi hung up the phone. With nobody seeing her valiant effort to free herself from the tangled telephone cord, she walked over and told the others, "Good news, everyone! They're sending someone out to help us right now!"

Aeka took a break from strangling Ryoko to wonder, "Wait, who exactly is going to help?"


Chrono
Vancouver, BC, Canada
'Same time

Unnoticed by everyone at the Masaki's kitchen table, a young woman who appeared to be a teenage girl with short brown hair and short twintails appeared through a portal outside... three hundred feet above the ground. She looked around, found the Masaki household below her, and flew toward it at a speed carefully measured to reach the house quickly without drawing attention to herself. She was also careful to watch for passing birds – she wasn't going to make that mistake again, and end up falling into somebody's arms! It was bad enough that that had happened the last time she visited Midgard. Belldandy-sama didn't mind that time, but she knew she had to make a good impression on these mortals, especially considering that a few of them were neither mortal nor celestial. Heaven's reputation was at stake.

She was quite happy to make a quiet one-point landing right on the Masaki's house's front deck. She walked over to the front door and knocked politely.

From within, she heard a girl say happily, "That must be the person who's going to help us!", followed by a woman saying rather sharply, "Don't be ridiculous, Mihoshi. They couldn't be here this quickly."

"Mihoshi"? Was she here to grant a wish to a youngster?

As the door opened, she heard Mihoshi reply, "Maybe they teleported here," and the other person answering, "Then they would have been here sooner."

The person who opened the door – a young-teen or thereabouts girl with cyan hair – asked, "Hello?"

She remembered to be on her best behavior. "Hello, miss. My name is Chrono, and I'm temporarily working with the Goddess Relief Agency. I'm here to speak with Mihoshi-san about her recent call to us."

"Please, come in! My name is Sasami. Please make yourself comfortable, and I'll call Mihoshi for you." Sasami escorted Chrono to the living room, then turned to the kitchen. Chrono knew better than to upset Sasami – her briefing notes were quite clear on who Tsunami was – so she sat quietly, waited, and pretended that she couldn't hear the conversation in the next room.

Until... something... hopped out of the kitchen and onto her lap, looked up at her, and asked, "Myaaaah?"

Chrono's scream of terror pierced the heavens.

(In Heaven, Chrono's co-workers, Ere and Ex, turned to each other and sighed. Ex followed up by saying in a monotone worthy of her mortal lookalike Rei Ayanami, "And Belldandy-sama told her to make a good impression, too.")

Needless to say, Chrono was quickly surrounded by the residents of the house. As Sasami took that ... whatever it was ... from Chrono's lap, a rather handsome young man asked, "Are you alright, miss?"

"I'm sorry! I shouldn't have screamed, but I was so startled! What is that ... thing that looks like a cross between a rabbit and a c-c-c-cat?" She regretted the nervous stutter as soon as she said it, but at least she didn't emphasize the word "cat", thanks to Belldandy-sama's help with her phobia the last time she was on Midgard.

The more-than-animal on her lap was just as frightened as Chrono was. She was used to shouting, but not like that! She hopped over to Sasami, who picked her up and petted her to calm her down. "Come on, Ryo-Ohki-chan. Let's go get a carrot." And the two of them headed of the kitchen so that Chrono could calm down, too.

Chrono relaxed once the door was closed behind Sasami and Ryo-Ohki. "I apologize for my outburst. I thought that I had my ailurophobia under control, but I wasn't ready when ... Ryo-Ohki?" As the others nodded, she continued. "When Ryo-Ohki hopped onto my lap and made ... that sound," she finished flatly.

The oldest man in the room smiled – almost kindly, but with a hint of satisfaction that spoiled the effect. "That's quite all right, miss. We all have things we'd rather not face. I'm Katsuhito Masaki," he finished with a bow.

"I'm Chrono, Goddess Trainee. Which of you is Mihoshi?"

A tall, dark-skinned blonde woman who was wearing what appeared to be a uniform of some sort stepped forward, and perkily said, "I'm Mihoshi!"

Chrono blinked. "I... see," she replied finally, unsure of what else to say. Mihoshi wasn't a child after all. In order to appear to be at least somewhat competent, she asked, "How long have you been here in Coquitlam?"

"Is that where we are?" asked a woman with pointed ears and pale-green hair, who was lounging while hovering above the floor.

Chrono looked surprised by that response. "You didn't know where you were, miss...?"

"Just call me Ryoko," she replied. "And, no, we didn't. Washuu did something last night," she explained with a bit of a growl in her voice.

"Call me Washuu-chan!" This came from a redhead who looked to be Sasami's age.

Chrono knew better than to mistake Washuu for a child, any more than she would mistake Skuld-sama for a child. The vessel is not the contents, after all. But if that's how she wanted to be addressed, then that's how Chrono would address her. "I'm honoured to make your acquaintance, Washuu-chan."

She noticed that the two males who hadn't yet been introduced to her were speaking quietly in a corner. "Dad, where in Canada is Coquitlam?" the younger – and more handsome – one asked the other.

"I think it's a suburb of Vancouver, Tenchi."

So that was Tenchi. He was even more handsome than his dossier in Heaven had lead her to believe. And she was in the same room as him... but she had to work! 'Aw, bugs!' she swore to herself, mentally.

By this point, Chrono had recovered from her fright. She stood up and bowed politely, and repeated the formal announcement of her arrival. "My name is Chrono, and I'm temporarily working with the Goddess Relief Agency. I'm here to speak with Mihoshi-san about her recent call to us."

Mihoshi suddenly looked worried. "Did I do something wrong?"

"Far from it," replied Chrono.

"Oh, good." And Mihoshi looked to be carefree again.

"Mihoshi-san, I am here to grant a wish. You may wish for anything, but you only get one wish."

A voice from below piped up, "Anything at all?"

"Why, yes, Washuu-chan."

"Doesn't that lead to difficulties for other people?" asked the one who looked like a Japanese noblewoman.

Chrono didn't know who the speaker was, but she recognized the voice as belonging to the person who had been speaking with Mihoshi when Sasami-sama answered the door. "Heaven has instrumentalities in place to prevent somebody who would wish ill upon others to make contact with the Goddess Relief Agency, miss...?"

"Ah. My name is Aeka."

"Aeka-san. It would be a very rare person who would think that, for example, destroying the entire world could be a good thing."

"Mihoshi! Wish that Tenchi chooses me as his partner!"

"Ryoko! How dare you suggest such a thing!" Chrono was happy to hear Aeka object to such a selfish wish until Aeka continued, "She should obviously wish that I become Tenchi-dono's mate."

Mihoshi looked downcast. "But I was hoping to become Tenchi's wife myself. I guess that's not a good thing to wish for, though. Is it?" she asked Chrono.

Chrono had a stock answer for that sort of question. "Would you really want to win somebody else's love that way?"

"No, I guess not. Maybe I should wish that we go home ..."

Chrono did her best not to react to that. She didn't want to be on record as the very first goddess who had to reject a wish.

"No, Washuu-chan is working on that."

Chrono quietly thanked The Almighty for that change of mind.

"It would be nice if somebody would give me advice about the wish."

"That's part of why I'm here, Mihoshi-san. I can advise you on your wish, but I cannot suggest anything specific to wish for. You could have fame, or riches, or companions... although I do believe that you've already dismissed the idea of wishing for a companion... but I can't tell you which sort of fame or wealth to wish for if that's what you want."

Aeka and Ryoko both looked daggers at Mihoshi... who ignored them. "Oh, yes. I'm already famous in the Galaxy Police, and my family has plenty of money, so I don't need anything like that, either. But I like the idea of somebody to give me advice."

"You certainly need it," muttered Washuu-chan.

"But advice about what?"

Chrono replied, patiently. "Anything that you would want advice about, Mihoshi-san."

"Oh, I know what to ask for! Oh, I shouldn't be greedy. But I know how to fix that!"

Chrono asked the ritual question. "Have you decided what to wish for?"

"I have!" Mihoshi suddenly looked completely serious. "I wish for local help for those of us who have found ourselves here, not just me!"

The wish flowed through Chrono and shot up to the Ultimate Force, blasting a hole in the room's ceiling, the floors and ceilings of the floors above her, and the building's roof.

Mihoshi saw the damage and whispered, "Oopsie."

As Chrono realized the enormousness of Mihoshi's wish, she fainted.

As she regained consciousness, Chrono saw a shaft of sunlight streaming through the window... the west-facing window, in the morning. It brightened and coalesced into a human form: [[c:File:Amaterasu cave crop.jpg|a beautiful female, with jet-black hair, pale olive skin that appeared to glow, and classically aristocratic Oriental features. The remaining light gathered around her to form a bright red silk nagajuban, covered by a formal white kimono also made from silk, and a gold tiara that supported a solar disk.]]

"I ask that you forgive my intrusion into your home, if it pleases you to do so." Her accent was the most formal of Received Pronunciation. Bowing slightly, she continued, "In this world, I am called Amaterasu. It pleases me to make your acquaintance." She looked around, noticed Sasami, Tenchi, and Washuu-chan, and bowed more deeply to them, much to Washuu and Tenchi's puzzlement.

Then she located the house's other visitor. Walking over, she said in a less-cultured and more-annoyed tone and a western Canadian accent, "Good morning, Chrono. What have you done this time?"

Bowing deeply, Chrono answered, "I'm so sorry, Amaterasu-sama! I don't have enough power to grant the wish that Mihoshi-san made!"

Amaterasu smiled benignly in understanding. "Ah. Raise your head, Chrono-chan. We do not expect a trainee to be able to grant a wish." Then her smile turned into a look of puzzlement. "Why are you here to grant a wish in the first place?"

"Nobody else was available when the call came in, ma'am," Chrono answered meekly.

Amaterasu's smile changed slightly, showing her amusement at one of Heaven's warrior trainees being meek. "That was not what I meant, Chrono-chan. Why was a call allowed to be made in the first place? Heaven is far too busy to grant wishes at the moment."

And that statement worried everybody else in the room.

"I shall return to Heaven and grant the wish for you. It is logged with the Ultimate Force, is it not?"

"Yes, ma'am. And thank you, ma'am."

And the room was filled with light once again. When the light disappeared, so had Amaterasu.

"Was that really Amaterasu Ōmikami?" Tenchi asked.

"It was! And it's so unusual for her to speak directly to me. Amaterasu-sama is at the same level as Belldandy-sama and Hestia-sama, and I'm just a trainee." Chrono sighed deeply, mainly in relief. "That went a lot better than I expected."

"How long until Mihoshi's wish is granted?"

Before Chrono could answer Ryoko's question, Aeka annoyedly said, "Ryoko! Show some respect!"

Washuu grabbed both Ryoko and Aeka before their discussion could turn into an argument. Forcibly guiding them both to the door, she said, "Take it outside, you two. But don't show off in front of the Coquitlans."

Chrono smiled in amusement. "All of you are so different from anybody else I've met. As for Ryoko-san's question, I don't know. Time flows differently in Heaven than it does on Earth. Amaterasu-sama might have to work on it for days, or weeks ..."

The room filled with light.

"... or maybe just a couple of minutes," she finished hurriedly.

Once Amaterasu had fully re-formed her corporeal body, she turned to Chrono and said, "You may return to Heaven now. Mihoshi-san's wish was worded so broadly that it will take a long time to grant, so long that Belldandy-san, Lachesis-san, Isis-san, and I will be working together to ensure the wish is granted. I will remain here until the first assistant has been recruited."

"Thank you, Amaterasu-sama. I'll be going now, Amaterasu-sama." Chrono bowed and headed for the door.

"Chrono-san?" She turned back to look at Tenchi. "You will always be welcome here."

"Thank you, Tenchi-san!" And Chrono made her way back to Heaven, a smile on her face.


Hild

Inside the greatest castle within a realm of snow, a provocatively-dressed maid with red marks on her face rushed through the warm, elaborately decorated halls. She took a final turn, and upon gingerly opening the great wooden door, blurted, "Milady, Metatron is here to see you."

Daimakaicho Hild, the Grand President of the Nine Hells, sighed. If He sent His messenger, instead of calling on the phone like He usually did, something big was probably up. Or it was some tiring formal ritual of the relationship between Heaven and Hell. It merited a preemptive sigh either way. "Understood. I'll greet him in my study in five minutes."

Being a demoness, she didn't really need time to prepare, as she always looked gorgeous. Making an angel wait was always a fun power play. Hild took the time to change into to something "more comfortable", which was actually less comfortable, but more suitable to her status. In addition to being more tempting, going around with less clothing projected power in frozen Niflheim.

In due course, the angel was allowed in to see the lord of the realm. "Greetings to you, Hildr of Hell."

"And good evening to you, Metatron. You're looking well. What brings you down here today, terms of surrender?" she teased.

"Terms of truce," he said, not missing a beat. "There has been an... incident. Yggdrasil is struggling to cope, and we were hoping to make use of your side's unique abilities."

A truce sounded like a headache to Hild. Keeping the denizens of Hell in line was hard on a good— well, a normal day, but keeping them from harrying from their eternal foes would be even harder. Not that she was opposed – she wouldn't mind being around folks on the other side. "What's in it for me? Are you planning to defect? You'd look good in black, like a sexy Professor Snape."

"I'm afraid not," he said dryly. "What's in it for you is the multiverse not unravelling."

She sighed again. The Voice of God wasn't kidding, because of course he wasn't kidding. As the leader of the fallen realms, she had her qualms with the way Heaven was run. But what kind of crazy person would want the multiverse to unravel? For instance, it was where Hild kept all of her stuff.

She understood at once why this couldn't happen over a phone call. Even the Goddess Communications Agency had busybodies in the ranks, and her own side had much worse. No, everything had to be in line when the edict went out, and she would have to crack the whips in the appropriate places (sometimes metaphorically).

"Right. Okay. What do you need?"

As usual, they wanted too much with too little in return. But with most of the requests, she didn't have much of an option. Some timelines had already been affected, and it was cascading to even more.

One of the things they asked for had surprised her at first, but made sense when you realized that the folks upstairs didn't really believe in hoarding assets. Demons understood the power of money. So, could Hell take care of a few souls who were displaced into a new world as a result of this mess? Sure. Running a property management company was definitely something her side could do well. In fact, she knew the perfect young demon to take on this task.


Ciel Phantomhive
Phantomhive Manor, Lamberhurst, Kent
3:30 PM UTC

Beyond an immaculately maintained garden with wide lawns, English roses, and paths through centuries-old trees lay a lake beside the River Bewl. On an island in that lake, essentially a moat, stood an old castle, built in the era of the Plantagenets. Like many castles, it bore signs of being built, rebuilt, replaced, and added onto. But by the time the Phantomhive family acquired the property, it had fallen into disrepair, a relic of a bygone age.

The Earl instead chose to build a new house with the family's growing wealth in the 1830s, a home worthy of an influential line. A short way away from the castle stood this new dwelling, Phantomhive Manor, a great house of sandstone that befit the local lords. Three stories tall, it had all a noble family and their servants would need. It looked just as it had been over a century and a half ago.

The current inhabitant rather liked it the way it was. Styles come and go, but class never changes. Of course, some accommodation had been made for modern conveniences, such as replacing stables with an automobile garage. And repairs had been made after the fire, but it was still very much the same house that Ciel Phantomhive remembered from his youth in the Victorian era. As unlikely as someone surviving from her reign into the early twenty-first century was, there was a quite simple explanation to this quandary: he had, of course, already died quite some time ago.

It was a beautiful afternoon in the dog days of summer, with a pleasant breeze in the air, and only a few clouds in the sky. A cloud passed in front of the sun, plunging the grounds into shadow. But this time, the shadow was perhaps a little too deep. The birds, sensing something wrong in the air, scattered away from the house.

The manor house's head butler, a tall, dark, and dapper gentleman in full coat and tails, noticed it too, so he did the most logical thing: He went downstairs and told the cook to put the kettle on. Sebastian Michaelis knew that a guest must be arriving soon. The security detail might not have noticed, even with CCTV cameras hidden around the perimeter, but this was the type of guest who didn't travel like most humans. It had to be a VIP from "below".

Sebastian was already at the front door before the insistent knock came upon it. He swiftly opened the door, and prepared to meet the guest. But when he saw who it was, he was briefly speechless. He knew from the aura it would be someone important, but not that important. He recovered quickly, "Good afternoon, Your Demonic Excellency. What brings you to our humble estate today?"

Hild wasn't in the mood for small talk. "I need to talk with Lord Phantomhive. Where is he now?"

She knew that he knew where Ciel was, so there was no way to stall for time and give his master the appropriate dignity of greeting her. She hadn't even bothered to her trademark shock-and-awe entrance. And if she was in that kind of mood, the only way Sebastian could think to survive would be to tell the lady what she wanted to know. "The master is in his study right now."

She rushed ahead into the hallways like a woman on a mission. There was simply no stopping her, so he let her pass through without a hint of complaint. It was fine, as it would give him a chance to drop by the kitchen to retrieve the afternoon tea service for two.

The door clicked open to Ciel's private study. One wall was covered by dark-stained wooden bookshelves, holding a selection of account books, fiction, and an encyclopedia set. A Gainsborough landscape was mounted on the opposite wall, above the liquor cabinet. The windows looked out to the rose garden, letting the afternoon sun filter in. The desk was a massive mahogany specimen, though perhaps it only looked so massive because of the teenage form sitting behind it.

Ciel Phantomhive was a young demon, as things go for immortals, but that's not why he was small. Aged thirteen at his death as a mortal, his natural growth would forever remain unfinished, arrested at the moment he surrendered his soul to Hell. Of course, he had since learned the techniques other celestials used to vary their age, but seldom bothered here at home. He was rather proud of his youthful appearance, and Hild found him to be quite the delectable little morsel – at least when she incarnated in tweenage form.

She was, however, in her adult-sized, full-powered form today – a fact that was not lost on Ciel. And she had come here, to his manor in the human world, without sending advance notice. In her small form, she would be here to jerk him around mischievously. Given the frown on her face, it probably meant that she was here to discuss something serious. Most likely one of the Underworlds' endless internecine feuds.

In short, Ciel had a Hell of a boss, but that was no reason to show poor form to an honored guest. He quickly stood up and greeted her, "It is an honour to receive you, Your Excellency."

"Good afternoon, Lord Phantomhive," she lied politely. It was very much not a good afternoon. But it was made better by the fact she was talking to someone who treated her with dignity. Unlike the endless sycophants and throngs of demons cowering in fear, he always acted as a person of class.

Lord Ciel Phantomhive was, once upon a time, a peer of the realm. But it was a twist of fate that the seventh Earl Phantomhive, as he was known even when he was still alive, ended up retaining his rank – if not his honour – as a Earl of Hell. It was a long and sordid affair that led to where he was today, but it had something to do with his long-standing butler Sebastian Michaelis, who had remained by his side even after the infernal contract was complete. Most observers agreed that there was something physical going on between the two, and Hild was enough of a fujoshi to believe it.

He looked over his boss. She was wearing that very low-cut dress in black and Tyrian purple she was so fond of, exposing her bountiful brown cleavage. She made no effort to hide the hexagonal star upon her brow and five-pointed stars on her cheeks, the outward signs of her station in the Lowerarchy, behind the long, thick silver hair flowing all around her face. And yet for all of her inviting features, the thing Ciel focused on was her unusual expression, a mix of pensiveness and frustration. "Would you care for a spot of tea?" he offered.

"That would be lovely, Ciel."

Before he even had a chance to ring, Sebastian walked in the room with a silver tray. He was too used to this sort of thing to be surprised, for Sebastian was one Hell of a butler.

Without saying a word, Sebastian set out a tray of blackcurrant scones, along with clotted cream and raspberry jam, and began pouring a Ceylon black tea out of a Wedgwood teapot into matching teacups.

Ciel took a sip of his tea, then asked, "What brings you here tonight, Ma'am?"

"It turns out I'm in the market for a man with a certain set of skills."

"Ah, Sebastian."

"No, this time it's you, Ciel." Sebastian had time to raise an eyebrow at her remark, before she continued, "There has been some sort of major fuck-up in Yggdrasil. They've already admitted they can't handle the situation in Heaven, and they have asked us for our help." Ciel had time to disdainfully utter a "tsk-tsk", before she continued "And I have agreed."

"Go on..."

"Universes have begun coalesce into a single one, in a kind of chain reaction. Only a few things have happened so far, but we expect more and more timelines to be integrated into this one."

"Falling like dominoes, then?"

"Precisely. And not all of them well-integrated, either."

"Have you suggested new management up there?"

Hild huffed, "Only a million times, but they all like my ex better. Anyway, this is the part where you come in. We need places to house the people displaced from their home universes. I'd like you to handle all of the properties for these dimensional displacees across Earth – acquisition, management, and upkeep. I have the feeling that Heaven's agents will be keeping a close eye on these residences, so I need someone who can handle it with tact and skill. I couldn't think of anyone better suited than you."

Flattery can get one almost anywhere, but Ciel recognized when he was being taken advantage of. "Forgive me, Ma'am. If Heaven is so interested in this part of the response, why don't they do it themselves?"

"Well, with everything going on, they just don't have enough miracles to go around these days," Hild said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "If only there was something else that could get housing, something else that makes the world go 'round?"

Ciel chuckled, "They need money. Poor goddesses – the whole vow of poverty thing just isn't working out for them, is it?"

"They do have the Seven Lucky Gods who didn't take that vow," Hild pointed out.

"Ah, but as the name says, there's only seven of them. I have more than seven financial advisors on staff in Funtom Toys alone." Money was not a problem for Lord Phantomhive. In the time since his mortal coil had been shuffled off, he had managed to recover nearly all of the property that had been his in life, including the toy company, the music hall, and of course the manor house. It was a point of personal pride to get them back, and he did so by hook and by crook. And Hild so loved a man who took pride in himself.

Even if he bought for Heaven's aims, it was still property, and it wouldn't hurt to invest. They'd probably even improve it for free. "It wouldn't hurt if we were to advance our goals in the meantime, right?"

"The truce isn't going to last forever," Hild affirmed.

Ciel asked his butler, "Sebastian, if you will, shall we form a new LLC to handle property management?"

"Of course, my lord." He took the question as an instruction, and withdrew to the office next door to assemble the requisite paperwork. He was quite glad to withdraw from that situation. He didn't understand how Ciel could act so normally around someone who could turn him to ash on a whim. Sebastian decided it was probably worth it to "expedite" the paperwork rather than risk Hild's wrath.

Back in the study, Ciel asked, "Ma'am, if I may be so bold, may I ask what compelled you to accept truce?" It bothered Ciel that she would choose to cooperate at a time the enemy was in disarray.

So she told him. Told him more than she should have, on later reflection. Only three minutes in, Ciel decided that it was time to break out the brandy. Hild needed to vent to someone, and Ciel was convenient. And loyal – the kind of man who would never break a confidence until the knife was already in your back. She swore him to secrecy, at least until she had a chance to figure out how to break the news without too many demons going rogue.

Of the five meetings with infernals Hild was currently physically present in, this one was by far the easiest. She took the time to finish her scone, before this incarnation went off to Muspelheim for the next task. It was nice to have a meeting where she didn't have to threaten anyone – but, on the other hand, threatening demon lords was fun, too.


Garnett Iwasaki
Vancouver, BC, Canada
10:34 AM PT

Are you xenophobic? This is not for you. We dearly need an open-minded person. He or she must be in good health, fluent in English with some Japanese, some knowledge of business practices or property maintenance essential, willing to assist the people around him or her. Permanent employment, pay and lodging, comprehensive health care, opportunities to learn and teach. You must apply in person at 1 Trevor Wingrove Way, Coquitlam.

Garnett thought that the ad at the very end of the alumni e-newsletter was a joke, at first. The address was smack-dab in the middle of Town Center Park (less than a kilometer from her old campus), for one thing. For another, it seemed suspiciously tailored to her skill set – and her state of desperation. After graduating with a General Business degree and a Japanese Modern Languages minor from Douglas College three months earlier, she still had no prospects; she had walked away from the graduation ceremony certain she would land a job in Tokyo, but so far hadn't had any luck despite all her applications and interviews. As a result, her bank account was nearly empty – there was no way she could pay the rent on her one-room apartment after the end of September, let alone the payments on her student loans.

But what did she have to lose? If it was a real job opportunity, she had to give it a try, and if it was a wild goose chase, she could at least spend a couple of hours relaxing and turning heads in the park. Garnett was well aware of how good she looked, and with her job search going so poorly so far, she could use an ego boost no matter how sexist it might be.

And thus was Ms. Garnett Iwasaki, 22 years old and looking for employment, surprised to find a driveway just off Trevor Wingrove Way, near the Lafarge Lake-Douglas SkyTrain station. She knew that the driveway hadn't been there a month ago, but it looked well-used and well-maintained. Ooooo-kaaaaay... she thought as she looked for any signs saying what was down the driveway. All she found was a sign identifying the address as 1 Trevor Wingrove Way and the driveway as private property.

Well, that was the address in the want ad. So she headed down the driveway, through a familiar copse of trees, and around the bend a few meters in from the road.

Then, when she saw the house at the end of the driveway, she thought she'd gone around the bend in more ways than one. She recognized that house, from an anime that her father Masahiko had shown her. After a moment, she whispered, "It's the Masaki house."

"Why, yes, it is," answered someone behind her – someone who Garnett thought sounded remarkably like, but not identical to, the Japanese voice actress Yumi Takada, only speaking English with a distinctly formal-sounding British accent.

It can't be, thought Garnett as she turned to face the person behind her. But it was. She was face to face with Princess Aeka Masaki Jurai, allowing for the changes from 2D to 3D, of course. Well, either that or a very invested cosplayer.

Garnett's first reaction was suspicion. "Aeka" and the house could be parts of some elaborate scam, but for the life of her Garnett couldn't imagine why someone would go to such lengths just to target an impoverished college grad only weeks away from homelessness. (Why else build it around a twenty-five-year-old anime the average Canadian probably never heard of?) Forget about getting permission to build a house in the middle of a public park so they could pull it off. On top of that, she'd replied to an ad she'd spotted pretty much at random. If they – whoever "they" might be – had specifically approached her and invited her to apply, that was one thing. But trusting to chance to bring her to them? That didn't seem likely.

So... apply Occam's razor, and Holmes' maxim, too, while we're at it. Whatever was going on here was too elaborate, and too precisely targeted, to be some manner of deception. No con artist would go to these extremes, even if it did turn out that she was actually the secret recipient of a massive fortune that she had yet to be informed of. So, as impossible as it might seem, this might actually be what it appeared to be.

Which would explain why they dearly needed an open-minded person. Play it cool, she thought, and take it all at face value. "Hello! I'm Garnett Iwasaki, and I've come to apply for the job that was advertised here." She showed ... she still couldn't believe it was Aeka ... the ad on her smartphone.

Reading the ad brought a look of surprise to the woman's face. "Oh! How unexpected! You must be..." She cut herself off and appeared to wrestle down her surprise; a thoughtful expression replaced it. "Ah, yes. Katsuhito-san was looking for someone to help him learn about the intricacies of business administration here in Canada. Please, come this way." And she headed for the house without checking whether Garnett was following.

Of course Garnett was following. She had a chance to meet Katsuhito Masaki – Crown Prince Yosho of Jurai – in real life! Or rather, she suddenly realized, somebody who was called Katsuhito by this person who she assumed was Princess Aeka. And the sooner an assumption was checked, the sooner it could be corrected if necessary. "Excuse me, but might I ask your name?"

"Oh, how rude of me. When you recognized our home, I thought that you would also recognize us. I am Aeka."

And it wasn't pronounced 'Ayeka', either. That settled one old Anime Club debate. "I'm honoured to meet you," she replied, stopping long enough on the path to bow briefly. "Please forgive me if I don't know the proper etiquette. The... sources I'm familiar with say very little about Juraian protocol, focusing as they do more on the dynamics of the household here."

Aeka studied her for a moment with a raised eyebrow. "You needn't worry. I think you'll find that we've tended to leave most of the courtly manners back on Jurai."

"Of course," Garnett replied. "Still, I wouldn't want to give offense."

Aeka sniffed, but there was a hint of a smile dancing on her lips. "Continue to show proper respect and you'll be fine." She turned and made for the broad deck – much too large and expansive to be a simple engawa – that wrapped around the western side of the house and out over the lake. "This way."

Stepping up on the deck, Garnett followed Aeka around the house to the side facing Lafarge Lake, what she always thought of as its front based on the establishing shots in the anime. No sooner had they turned the corner, though, than they were ambushed by another face familiar to Garnett from her 2D representation.

"Hi, Aeka! Katsuhito was just looking for you!" squealed the mass of tanned skin and blonde curls that accosted them. "Oh! Who's this?"

"This is Miss Garnett Iwasaki, Mihoshi," Aeka replied, looking down her nose at the blonde before turning back to Garnett. "Miss Iwasaki, this is, as I'm sure you already suspect, Mihoshi Kuramitsu of the Galaxy Police." Garnett studied the blonde. She knew Mihoshi was supposed to be attractive enough to compete in the Tenchi sweepstakes had she wanted, but she hadn't expected her to look like a Playboy Playmate. Most of her figure was buried in baggy khaki slacks and a loose T-shirt, but they were about as successful at hiding her curves as her hair was at hiding the tips of her elongated ears. Garnett shook herself and turned back to Aeka just as the princess declared, "Miss Iwasaki is here about the job helping Katsuhito-san..."

"Oooooh!" Mihoshi squealed, even louder and higher this time. "She's the person I wished for!"

Garnett whipped her head back to the blonde and glared at her under heavy brows. "I beg your pardon?"

Ignoring Aeka's suddenly-frantic shushing gestures (much to Garnett's private amusement), Mihoshi replied, "Oh, yes! Right after we realized we were in Canada instead of Okayama, I made a phone call to get Tenchi's schoolwork but I must have dialed a wrong number and I got a nice lady from the Goddess Relief Agency instead who told me she'd be right here, and then she was, and she said I got a wish, so I wished for someone to help everyone get used to being here!"

Garnett blinked. "The Goddess Relief Agency," she said flatly.

"Uh-huh!" Mihoshi nodded vigorously, sending shimmering waves through her hair. "Have you heard of them? I hadn't. But they seem like very nice people." When Garnett didn't reply right away, she clarified, "They don't relieve goddesses, it's actually the other way around."

She looked back and forth between Mihoshi and Aeka. "Okay. This is bigger than just the Masaki house showing up in Coquitlam, isn't it?"

Aeka bit her lip. "I'm afraid so."

"Washuu broke the universe!" Mihoshi announced a bit too brightly.

Eyes closed, Aeka drew in a long breath as though calming herself – which Garnett realized she probably was. Then she said, "Please, come inside. Everything will be explained."

-----

There had been a pair of slippers waiting for her at the door, and Garnett had known enough to remove her shoes and step into them. Aeka nodded approvingly as she put on slippers of her own, then led Garnett through the oddly familiar house. She stopped at a door that, unlike the others Garnett had seen so far, was a traditional sliding paper panel. Aeka knocked gently on the wooden frame, and a deep and raspy male voice replied with a slightly muffled "Come in."

Aeka slid the panel open, then stepped in and to one side. Garnett took a deep breath and stepped up to the door before peering in. Inside was a very traditional room with a tatami floor and more paper panels as walls. Three people sat on the far side of a low, wide chabudai from her – a woman and two men. A scroll with the "Iroha" inked on it in a bold hand hung on the wall behind the man in the middle – who from his grey hair, glasses, mustache and priest's robes she realized had to be...

"Katsuhito-dono," Aeka said in an archaic-sounding Japanese, "Amaterasu-sama, Michaelis-dono. This is Iwasaki Garnett. She is here to apply for the job."

"Thank you, Aeka," Katsuhito-san (!) replied in English. Garnett thought his voice, unlike Aeka's, didn't sound very much like either his Japanese or North American voice actors. Interesting. "Please, Ms. Iwasaki," he continued, "Come in."

Garnett did so, stopping two steps in to bow respectfully to the table. "Thank you for seeing me," she said before straightening up and taking a better look at the other two people behind it. On Katsuhito-san's left was a slender man who looked like he'd be nearly two meters tall when he stood up. He was dressed in a butler's uniform, complete with white gloves on his folded hands; his lank black hair was cut short in the back and sides, but hung down to his collar in the front to frame his sharp features.

To Katsuhito-san's right was a Japanese woman in a exquisite (and exquisitely formal) kimono of brilliant white silk, under which she was wearing a nagajuban of bright red, also silk. A golden tiara with a disk upon her brow held back her long, shining black hair, which stretched out of sight below the edge of the table. Garnett blinked and squinted for a moment as she studied the woman. She seemed to be... glowing?

"Please, be seated," Katsuhito-san continued, gesturing at a zabuton on the opposite side of the table from him. A frown briefly crossed her face before Garnett suppressed it – had the cushion been there before? She was pretty sure it hadn't been.

She took another deep breath. "Thank you," she said, and carefully lowered herself into seiza on the cushion.

Katsuhito-san looked over her shoulder to her guide. "Thank you, Aeka," he said. The princess didn't say anything, but Garnett heard her leave the room and close the door behind her.

The elderly-seeming man (Garnett smiled to herself, knowing his secret) returned his attention to her. "Thank you for responding to our advertisement, Ms. Iwasaki. I am Masaki Katsuhito, as I'm sure you have already deduced." Under his mustache a quick smile flashed. He gestured to his left. "With me are Mr. Sebastian Michaelis." Michaelis smirked slightly as he briefly inclined his head to her. Katsuhito then gestured to his right. "And Amaterasu Omikami."

Garnett blinked. "I'm sorry? Amaterasu?" she said as the other woman studied her with an imperious mien. "The Amaterasu?"

She sniffed. "Yes."

Garnett blanched, and managed a bow from her seated position. "Please forgive me, Amaterasu-sama – it's just that your presence was far beyond anything I was expecting."

As she sat up straight again, Garnett saw the goddess' expression soften. "Of course, child."

"So..." Garnett bit her lip as she glanced from face to face. "I'm being interviewed by you, Katsuhito-dono, and... a butler?"

The fellow's lip twitched slightly, although whether it was into a smile or sneer she couldn't really tell. "A butler who couldn't interview an applicant for the position of local liaison to the royal family of Jurai isn't worth his salt."

With that sentence, Garnett remembered where she knew the name 'Sebastian Michaelis' from. "You're a demon."

He smiled toothily. "Guilty as charged; I am one Hell of a butler."

"You. Are. A demon."

Sebastian's smile disappeared, to be replaced with a scowl of impatience. "Yes, we've established that already."

Amaterasu cleared her throat. "Now, now. It's one thing to accept the existence of interstellar royalty, and quite another thing to accept the existence of the supernatural."

Garnett raised a forefinger. "It's not the supernatural, per se... I just wasn't exactly expecting a demon to be present at a job interview. Especially not seated at the same table as Amaterasu-sama." She inclined her head to the goddess, who smiled faintly in response. Garnett paused a moment, then added, "And now that I think about it... there's even more going on here than I suspected even given what I've learned so far, isn't there?"

Sebastian glanced over to his counterpart. "She's perceptive."

"And intuitive," Amaterasu agreed. "It's a good start."

"Before we get into that," Katsuhito interrupted, "why don't we find out a bit more about our guest?" His eyes twinkling, he gestured toward her and added, "Why don't you tell us a bit about yourself, Ms. Iwasaki? I would guess that you are not fully of Japanese ancestry?"

She smiled back at him. "Yes, you guess correctly. My paternal grandparents were Japanese immigrants; my father Masahiko was born here in Canada. My mother's family is Irish – I get my eye and hair colors from her, although Dad tells me auburn hair runs intermittently through his side of the family, too."

"Auburn?" Sebastian asked with a faint, knowing smirk.

She ran a hand through her bright red pixie cut and chuckled sheepishly. "My natural color. But it's a little dull in my opinion, so I've been dying it since I started college."

"Yes, college," Amaterasu murmured. "Please tell us about that."

Garnett nodded. "Well, I graduated summa cum laude with a business degree just this past June from the Coquitlam Campus of Douglas College, pretty much across the lake from here. I minored in Japanese because, well, family, and because I wanted to get a job in Tokyo." She grimaced. "Unfortunately, nothing's come through yet on that. In the meantime I've started interviewing here in Vancouver, too."

"What kind of... extracurriculars were you involved in?" Sebastian asked with a tiny smile that made Garnett think he already knew the answer to his question.

"Well, I did some women’s basketball during freshman and sophomore years," she replied, "but I was never even a second-stringer on the team. Of course I was in the Commerce and Business Association, and I'm a member of Beta Alpha Psi, have been since sophomore year." She hesitated, then added, "And I was a member of the anime club all four years."

"The anime club?" Katsuhito asked with a smile, glancing at his fellow interviewers.

Garnett sighed. "I admit it, I'm a anime fan, have been since elementary school." She gave a little half-grin. "Dad turned me on to it with all these shows he was into when he was a kid. He first showed me Tenchi Muyo when I was ten."

Katsuhito quirked an eyebrow. "Tenchi Muyo?"

She laughed. "Your show – Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki, the original Tenchi OVAs." She paused thoughtfully. "At least I assume it's your show. Unless there's a Galaxy Police officer named Kiyone Makibi around, or Tenchi's in Tokyo training to be a priest. Or Ryo-ohki turns into a mecha instead of a starship." She grinned. "I think I can eliminate the one where Sasami's a magical girl and Washuu's a teacher in her school."

That got her both eyebrows. "A Kiyone Makibi, no," he said slowly, and Garnett knew why. Good going, idiot, remind him of his dead daughter. "Ryo-Ohki's quite definitely a starship. And Tenchi's out exploring the neighborhood with Sasami right now."

Garnett nodded. "In that case, I'm reasonably well-informed about everyone in this house, as well as some of their secrets... your Highness."

For a moment Katsuhito had seemed to be growing melancholy, but with that he looked up, startled. "I suppose I should have expected that," he said.

"We can save further explorations along those lines for later," Amaterasu said.

Sebastian nodded. "Yes – we have more important matters to deal with. Firstly, I am sure you are wondering just how it is that the Masakis and their guests have found themselves transported from Okayama in their own timeline to Vancouver in this one."

"Mihoshi said something about Washuu breaking the universe," Garnett ventured.

Amaterasu and Sebastian both grimaced, and Katsuhito chuckled darkly. "Quite," the goddess said. "Although her experiment was only part of it, not the primary cause. A number of universes across the panoply of timelines that make up the multiverse have spontaneously ... erupted with energies that have destabilized them and their neighbors."

"Destabilized?" Garnett asked.

"That is the simplest way of putting it, yes," Sebastian replied.

"How?" Garnett tried to process this. "Why?"

"We don't know." Amaterasu frowned. "At this point we are still not even certain that Washuu-dono's experiment was a cause, or if it was only a symptom."

Sebastian snorted. "Or even just a coincidence. Regardless, one effect of the crisis is that small groups of people are being displaced from the threatened timelines into this one."

"Groups, plural?" Garnett asked.

He nodded, and gestured to their surroundings. "The Masaki household is just the first. Others will be arriving shortly, and additional groups will continue to arrive for quite a while, from what we've determined."

"This is a relatively low-energy universe compared to others in the multiverse," Amaterasu continued, "and consequently very stable. Because of its energy state it's acting like a ground or sink into which the displacees are drawn; interestingly, it also seems very... flexible about fitting them in. Our mortal agents were quite surprised to find that there already exists extensive and genuine documentation dating back several decades regarding the Masaki home's presence in what is otherwise a public park." She smiled. "Because of these factors, one of our priorities right now is protecting and reinforcing the stability of this timeline while it's still drawing in and housing refugees from the crisis."

Garnett raised a finger. "You've both been saying 'we' and 'our'. Does that mean..."

Sebastian nodded. "Yes. As part of dealing with the ... current situation, Heaven and Hell have put aside their differences..."

"Temporarily," Amaterasu murmured. Sebastian shot her a dirty look.

"Yes, temporarily," he amended. "Which leads us into the second point I wanted to raise. "As I was about to say, Heaven and Hell are working together at this time, and we are backing measures to provide shelter and local guides to persons like the Masakis who may find themselves ... imported to this timeline. Anyone we hire will be working for Funtom Property Management, a company set up by yours truly but overseen by both sides." He smirked. "Essentially, your ultimate bosses would be the Bosses – Lady Hild and The Almighty."

Amaterasu smoothly picked up the thread. "The position we are looking to fill here is a that of a local liaison for the Masaki household. Since you would be the first such liaison we are hiring, you would have a great deal of latitude in actually defining the job, but there are certain hard and fast requirements: You would be expected to help the Masakis acculturate to Canada, acting as a reference and instructor on all the details of life here that differ from Japan, and helping them with day-to-day matters of life in the West. You'll be providing advice on business administration and financial matters to Katsuhito-san as he re-establishes the family's wealth and resources here. You'd be tasked with helping the family – and their hangers-on – through the Canadian immigration process as well."

"You'd also be expected to be available 24/7," Sebastian added. "Which means you'd be required to move into the Masaki home."

Well, Garnett thought. That would certainly take care of my impending homelessness problem, but it would also put me at ground zero for any fights between Ryoko and Aeka. And I doubt I'm a fraction as durable as even Sasami is...

Katsuhito took her moment of mixed contemplation and terror as the cue to move into the next phase of the interview. "Now that you know what we're looking for and we know a little about you, Ms. Iwasaki, why should we hire you?"

Garnett took a deep breath, confirmed to herself that yes, she did want this job as strange and scary as it sounded, and then launched into her pitch.

-----

When the interview had concluded, Katsuhito had asked Garnett to wait for a decision, which frankly surprised her. She couldn't possibly be the only applicant for the job, could she? She was still pondering this when she rejoined Mihoshi on the deck. She'd been offered a seat in the living room, but chose to wait outside because she felt it was safer than being trapped in the house should Ryoko appear and a fight break out between her and Aeka.

"So, did your interview go well?" Mihoshi asked as Garnett settled in on the deck after being waved over to the blonde alien's side.

"I think so," she offered as she took a seat on the edge of the deck and dangled her feet above the surface of the lake. A light breeze that seemed to come from under the deck played across her feet and calves.

"If they offer you the job, are you going to take it?" Mihoshi continued.

Garnett considered this. "I certainly need the work," she admitted. "But I'm not sure I can" survive "keep up with everyone in the house."

Mihoshi turned to face her. "Oh, I really hope you take it! I mean, I wished for someone to help, and you seem nice, and it would be so great to have someone nice like you to help us get used to Canada, and it would be terrible if the person I wished for didn't actually become the person I wished for." Then she laid back down on the deck with a sigh, "Maybe that's just wishful thinking."

Garnett blinked. "Uh, right." Following Mihoshi's lead, she laid back on the deck and closed her eyes, then began pondering the job she'd just interviewed for. The pay wasn't bad... even if she hadn't been offered room and board as part of the package it still would have been more than enough to keep her current lease and live on comfortably. (At least using a college student's definition of "comfortable", she mentally footnoted with a smile.) Medical and dental coverage were also included, courtesy of Washuu – which probably meant she'd never get sick or have a toothache ever again in her life. She couldn't deny that that held a substantial appeal. Funtom also had other, more mundane benefits competitive with most of the employers with whom she'd already interviewed – she certainly wouldn't be sacrificing anything to take this job. Not to mention, of course, living and interacting daily with a household full of people of whom she'd been a fan for nearly her entire life.

On the other hand, there was the likelihood of becoming collateral damage in the first Aeka-Ryoko fight after she got hired. She had no illusions about her chances should she get caught in a crossfire.

"And who's this?"

Garnett opened her eyes with a start to see a mass of hair even more brightly red than her own leaning over her. "Uh... hello?" The person leaning over her looked like a girl in her early teens at the most, but with that hair, and the knowing, sly look in those eyes – and where Garnett was, to boot – it could only be...

"Washuu-chan!" Yeah, that's what she thought. "Hi!" Mihoshi had somehow popped vertical almost instantly. "This is Garnett. She's the one I wished for!"

A red eyebrow lifted. "Oh, really?"

"Yeah! She was just interviewing with Katsuhito-san and his friends to be our local liaison."

Washuu nodded comprehendingly. "Ah," she said, drawing out the single syllable.

Garnett scrambled to her feet as the tiny scientist stepped back, and bowed to her. "Garnett Iwasaki." As she straightened up she added, "I've always wanted to meet you! At least, since I learned you're real!"

"So, 'always' means 'the last hour or so'."

Garnett laughed sheepishly. "Yeah, something like that."

Washuu smirked. "I like you. Wanna be my guinea pig?"

"I don't know," Garnett returned the smirk. "I always envisioned myself as more of a rhesus monkey."

Washuu erupted in a braying laugh. "I really like you! C'mon down to my lab..."

Garnett couldn't resist. "...And see what's on the slab?"

That got her another laugh and an assessing look from the diminutive redhead. "I see I'm going to have keep on my toes around you." Washuu glanced around. "Where's Katsuhito? I wanna tell him to hire you right now."

"No need." Garnett and Washuu both turned towards the house. Katsuhito was standing not far away, the goddess and the demon behind and to either side of him. "We've decided to offer her the position. Ms. Iwasaki, if you'd like to come back into the house, we can do up all the paperwork."

-----

At the last minute, staring at the employment contract placed in front of her by Sebastian, Garnett had a moment of doubt. Knowing that she was looking a contract to work for a demon, she took her time reading it. To her surprise, it had obviously been written by somebody in Heaven: it was clear and concise... and specifically noted that it made no claim to her soul or the souls of anyone she loved. That was good. And, she reminded herself, she wasn't working for just a demon, but a demon and a megami (and if the contract was any indication, HR was being handled by the megami's side of things). That, plus of course the fact that she desperately needed the job, made the final decision a no-brainer.

She signed the contract.

She was still worried about getting caught in the blast radius of an Aeka-Ryoko spat, though.

Fifteen minutes later, she and Katsuhito were coming out of the first floor bedroom which was to going to be her new home (larger than her current apartment and furnished with a western bed, big win there) when a familiar-sounding voice – far more Matt Miller than Masami Kikuchi – echoed through the house. "Grandpa? We're back!"

And here he is, the star of the show, Garnett thought with a smile.

"We're in here, Tenchi," Katsuhito called back as she followed him back down the stairs to the main room. Her eyes flicked up to the rafters, just in case – she still hadn't met Ryoko yet, something that would no doubt be rectified within the hour – then looked past Katsuhito at the pair who had entered the room from other end. Sasami's ankle-length cyan hair caught her eye immediately, but instead of the teal, pink and yellow kimono Garnett expected from the anime, she was in jeans and a Tokyo Disneyland T-shirt.

Perched on top of Sasami's head was Ryo-Ohki, who was as adorable in person as she was in the anime, if not more so. It took all of Garnett's self control not to squeal at the sight of her. She finally wrenched her eyes from the little creature to assess the teen standing next to Sasami. Like Sasami, Tenchi (who loomed nearly a head and half taller than her) was in jeans and T-shirt. Both were, she realized belatedly, laden with plastic shopping bags.

"We found a few grocery stores," Tenchi said, lifting the bags in his hands. "They're not far away, about twenty, twenty-five minutes' walk."

"And there's an ice cream stand just a little ways down the road our new entrance is on!" Sasami added.

"Yeah, that too." Tenchi seemed to suddenly notice Garnett. "Oh, hi! Are you the person grandpa was going to hire to help us?"

Katsuhito smiled warmly. "Yes, she is. Tenchi, meet Ms. Garnett Iwasaki. She'll be moving into the empty room on the first floor. Ms. Iwasaki, this is my grandson Tenchi."

"Hi," Garnett said, and made a quick bow. "Nice to meet you."

Tenchi's eyes swept over her head-to-toe and back again in a pattern Garnett was all too familiar with – yes, she was good-looking and she knew it, but there were times when she wished men (and boys) would have a different first reaction. She returned the favor by giving Tenchi her own once-over – and dismissing him. He was cute, she supposed, and nicely fit in a non-musclebound way, but he was way too young for her. Not that she had anything against younger men – her boyfriend-and-maybe-fiancé Kevin had just finished his junior year at Douglas, after all – but sixteen was too much younger. And the rattail thing he had going with his hair did nothing for her.

Nor did the "incarnate superdeity" thing, to be honest. (She wondered for a moment if Amaterasu and Sebastian were aware of that. They probably were, but still...)

Garnett realized she might just have taken too much time to look Tenchi over when she noticed that Sasami had begun slowly retreating in the direction of the kitchen. A moment later Aeka appeared and wrapped herself around his left arm. "Lord Tenchi, welcome home."

Meanwhile a wild-haired someone who could only be Ryoko teleported in with the distinctive sound Garnett remembered from the anime, materializing already latched onto his right arm. "Tennnnnn-chiii," she sing-songed, "you're home!" As an obviously-uncomfortable Tenchi stood helplessly anchored in place by them, bags of groceries still hanging from his arms, Ryoko and Aeka glared at each other across his chest, and then in eerie synchronization turned to glare in tandem at Garnett.

Well. Crap.

Although she knew it was almost certainly useless, Garnett gave a dismissive wave. "You have nothing to worry about here. I'm not interested in Tenchi. I have a boyfriend I am very happy with."

Her attempted reassurance had worse than no effect. If anything, the intensity of the dual glares increased – she could almost see the crackling lightning in Ryoko and Aeka's eyes. She sighed and wondered if it was too late to get out of the contract she had just signed. Neither the money nor the chance to live with anime magic particularly seemed worth the hassle right now.

Sasami saw it too, that worrying fire in her sister's and Ryoko's eyes. But the part of her that was Tsunami reassured her. This soon after a wish, there was no way the Ultimate Force would let Garnett be chased out of the home by pranks and skulduggery. Aeka-onee-sama would have to learn her lesson the hard way.


Mike Callahan
Callahan's Place, Suffolk County, NY, USA
4:44 PM ET

Are you xenophobic? This is not for you. We dearly need an open-minded person. He or she must be in good health, fluent in English with some Spanish, some knowledge of business practices or bartending essential, willing to assist the people around him or her. Permanent employment, pay and lodging, comprehensive health care, opportunities to learn and teach. You must apply in person at 366 Route NY-25A, Rocky Point, NY.

"We caught the ad before it went out, dad. And... Yggdrasil now has a record of me being hired as your local liaison."

The man behind the bar smiled at that news. "Thank you, Mary, Txffu."

"Considering our assignment here, it would be best to call me 'Mickey' again... Mike."

"You're right. We're Mike, Mary, and Mickey Callahan again. It's been a while."

"Speaking of our assignment..." The two men gave Mary their attention. "Considering we're here to help the displaced people and their building managers relax and cope with the strangeness of being dropped into the same reality, is mom – Sally – going to re-open her place too?"

Mike shook his head. "We don't think that that would be a good idea this time around. First, social norms have changed and a brothel wouldn't be quietly ignored the way it was last time. Second, we're pretty sure we can fly under the celestials' radar if we have one place, even if they become patrons here, but having two places would be too obvious to them. We're here to reduce stress, not increase it, and that includes the celestials."

"Hang on," Mary complained. "If we're trying to fly under the celestials' radar, how are we hiding from the Goddess of the Future? She's bound to notice us if she gets too close."

"That isn't an issue," replied her husband, Mickey. "In this here-now, the Goddess of the Future uses a young-teen embodiment when visiting threespace. She isn't legally allowed to enter a bar." He turned from Mary to Mike and asked, "What is the plan?"

Mike was used to his son-in-law's abrupt changes of topic. "By and large, the same as last time – run an inexpensive bar that most people can't find unless they need to find it, and help everybody who walks through the door unless they aren't willing to help themselves. We're just going to have a lot more doors than we did in the 1970s."

"Who's going to staff the place?" asked Mary.

"That's one of the funny things about this here-now," replied Mike. "Causality is malleable enough when somebody first arrives that we expect we're going to get the same staff and core clientele, right down to Doc Webster being still alive."

"That means meeting Jake again," Mickey pointed out.

"We'll build that bridge when we get to it," Mary replied.


Bob Schroeck
Somerset, New Jersey, United States of America
6:00 PM EDT

Are you xenophobic? This is not for you. We dearly need an open-minded person. He or she must be in good health, fluent in English with some French, some knowledge of business practices or property maintenance essential, willing to assist the people around him or her. Permanent employment, pay and lodging, comprehensive health care, opportunities to learn and teach. You must apply in person at 462 Hamilton Street, Somerset, NJ 08873.

Bob knew something odd was up when Rob pointed out the ad that had appeared on his forums. It was in the Marketplace board, which was as close to the proper place for it to be as there could be, but he didn't recognize the member who'd posted it. That was suspicious point number one – his forums had less than 200 members, and the majority of them had been there for almost fifteen years. A user whom Bob don't recognize? Impossible.

Running a hand through the few wisps of mixed strawberry blond and white hair that remained on his head, Bob checked the user report on the board's admin control panel. The user had become a member literally seconds before posting the ad – but as one of his defenses against spammers and hackers, Bob had the board set such that all new members needed his manual approval. And he had never gotten a notice to approve this "FuntomPM". He pulled off his glasses, rubbed his eyes and the bridge of his nose, then returned his glasses to their usual perch and switched over to the board logs. They confirmed that not only was there no record of him approving the user, there was no record of the user ever having been created. Suspicious point number two.

Bob grit his teeth and wrestled down a pulse of anxiety. The board had obviously been hacked. He reported it to his ISP, and while things churned on their end he did a diff between the live website and his local copy of it where he did development and update work. To his puzzlement he found no differences. Then after confirming he had the latest version of the board software, he then ran a diff between it and a local copy freshly acquired from its developers. He was looking to see if anything had been planted anywhere on his site, like the time some years earlier when somehow someone slipped a Bitcoin mining script into one of its pages.

Nothing. Just the mystery ad.

And then the messages about the ad started popping up in the thread. It quickly became clear that everyone who saw it saw a different address. Which was also impossible, as far as Bob understood the board software. That led him right back to the "been hacked" explanation, except the hacker would have to have been watching every connection that opened that thread – and changing the message on the fly.

Or maybe they were running a man-in-the-middle attack, somehow interposing themselves between his board and his users. Which, he admitted, would look more like what he and his users were seeing.

Regardless, it was a whole hell of a lot of effort for... what? What did they get out of this? Bob couldn't figure a motive. It couldn't just be a simple "help wanted" ad, not with everything going on around it... and not with the obviously intentional echo of Star's classified from Heinlein's Glory Road. The motive – and their payoff – had to make the effort they were going through worth it. And that was suspicious point number three.

By this point some of the users were posting that they intended to check out the addresses they were seeing. Bob considered this. What the hell, he thought. The address I see can't be more than five or ten minutes away. And if somehow it was actually on the level, well, he'd been unemployed for five or six weeks now, and his wife Peggy had been effectively retired for several years. While their savings weren't about to run out yet, re-establishing their financial stability would be a good thing. Either way, it was going to be at least an hour or two before his ISP's support techs got back to him about the possible hacking. So why not just drive over there and see what was up?

Bob logged out of the admin panel, slept his system and walked down the hall to the living room.  His wife Peggy lay on the leather couch (as opposed to the green upholstered one at right angles to it), propped up against one arm reading something on her smartphone.  The late afternoon light illuminating the living room spilled through the window over her shoulder and lit up her auburn hair – now showing a few strands of grey where even a couple years earlier there had been none – and gave it that shimmering blaze he'd always loved.  Her glasses lay on the coffee table next to her, and as she hadn't looked up he suspected that she hadn't even noticed he'd entered the room.

"Hey, love," he said, and he waited for her to shift gears and actually look up.  "Want to go for a little ride?"

It took a bit of explaining, but Bob talked Peggy into accompanying him, and only a few minutes later they were in their car, heading down Hamilton street to the address in the ad. To their surprise, they recognized it when they found it: 462 Hamilton was Douglass Gardens Apartments. Their friend Attila's mother had lived there until she passed away in the late 1990s, and they'd helped him clear out her apartment after the funeral.

It was a fair-sized garden apartment complex with multiple buildings, located right on the Somerset side of the New Brunswick city limits. Bob frowned; the last he heard it was still a going concern, so the "Closing – under new management" banner draped over the complex's sign – and the moving trucks being loaded by what were clearly soon-to-be former residents – were a surprise. They turned onto Annette Place, the road that ran down the middle of the complex, and then into the parking lot behind the right-hand building facing Hamilton Street. That was the one that held the rental office, which Bob figured was the best place to find someone who knew what this was all about.

The door was open, but when he and Peggy walked in they found the office – basically the rental agent's personal apartment – was completely empty except for a card table and two folding chairs. Seated in them was a young woman and an elderly man poring over the contents of a manila folder together, the latter bent over it so low that all he could see were the thin wisps of white hair that ringed his bald pate. At the sound of the door they looked up. The young woman sat up straight and smiled at them; in contrast the elderly man seemed to have to contort himself painfully to look at them. They shared a glance, and then the woman closed the folder before standing up. As she did, Bob got a good look at her: quite pretty, with dark eyes and olive skin, long black hair hanging to her ankles, and voluminous robes several layers deep in a rainbow of colors that somehow had a toga-like feel to them.

Behind her the man slowly and carefully levered himself to his feet, revealing a thin, almost shriveled, figure with an exaggeratedly bent back that kept him from standing anything like straight up; his face was deeply lined and his eyes were rheumy. In contrast to the young woman's colorful garb, he was dressed in a suit of crisp white linen, with a white shirt and tie, carefully buttoned and tucked so that it didn't hang straight down from his neck. Bob's thought at the sight was was, The old man's obviously who we're here to see. But who's the girl? A cosplayer? Maybe another applicant?

No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than the woman declared brightly, "Ah! There you are! Right on time, too, darn it, which means I lose the pool." She stepped forward and shook both their hands. "You're Bob and Peggy Schroeck," she said as if she could recognize us on sight. "I'm Hemera, daughter of Erebus and Nyx, Greek goddess of the day."

The old man shuffled forward and shook their hands as well. "And I," he said in a voice whose raspy and and wheezing tones perfectly matched his appearance, "am Geras, daimon of Old Age. Thank you for responding to our advertisement."

Hemera beamed brightly at both of them. "Your dossier says you won't react well to dancing around the point so let's just establish we're who we say we are so we can get to the important stuff, okay?" At her side, Geras rolled his eyes.

Later, neither Bob nor Peggy were ever able to truly describe what happened next in any way that made any sense, except in the broadest metaphorical manner. The closest they would ever come to describing the experience was that the two individuals in front of them had simply stopped being human beings, and had briefly become... something else. The same persons, undeniably, but ... yeah. Goddess and daimon. No argument.

A moment later they went back to being a shortish young woman and a bent and twisted old man. Hemera smiled warmly at them. "There. Any questions?"

Bob glanced at Peggy. "Nooooo," she said quietly. He looked back at Hemera, shook his head, and added, "None here."

The smile cranked up another notch and the room got noticeably brighter, as if the sun had just started shining through all the windows. Geras seemed to straighten up just a little, and smiled slightly himself. "Good, good," she said. "Now let us explain what's going on and why we sent you that ad..."


Rob Donaldson
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
6:54 PM ET

Are you xenophobic? This is not for you. We dearly need an open-minded person. He or she must be in good health, fluent in English with some French, some knowledge of business practices or property maintenance essential, willing to assist the people around him or her. Permanent employment, pay and lodging, comprehensive health care, opportunities to learn and teach. You must apply in person at 2176 Blossom Drive, Ottawa, Ontario.

That ad was not supposed to be present on the forum where he'd read it, since that forum didn't normally accept help-wanted ads... but when he'd reported the ad to Bob (who he happened to be at least acquaintances with, and had met in person years earlier), they discovered that the copy of the ad on his feed ended with a different address in a different country altogether. Then the other forum members mentioned seeing different addresses in their copies of the ad. They'd decided that this was odd enough that somebody should investigate it in person.

So they both did.

Rob Donaldson had grown up in Ottawa. Capital of Canada and home of one end of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. "A big city with a small-town feel," as one of the local radio stations put it. One of the claimants of the name "Silicon Valley North." Home town of Alanis Morissette, A Tribe Called Red, Amos the Transparent, the Five Man Electrical Band, MonkeyJunk, and The Reverb Syndicate, to name just a few of the local singers and bands, but still a city with a stereotype of rolling up the sidewalks after six o'clock. A city with enough different kinds of restaurants that, if you can afford it, you can try a different cuisine every night in a month without repeating a country. And, he was quite sure, a city that had only detached single-family houses, a small playground, and one lonely two-storey apartment building on Blossom Drive.

But the building he visited had three storeys.

Maybe he'd misremembered; after all, he visited this part of the city rarely, and then only because his optometrist had an office just beside the apartment building in question. And he was getting old, too. But not too old; he'd retired recently because he was tired of all the office politics getting in the way of work but he had to wait a few more years before he could start collecting his pension... and that was another reason why he decided to check out the ad. He fit the qualifications they'd listed (depending on how much French was "some"), and, while he had enough savings to last a couple of years, things were going to get tight before that pension kicked in.

He decided that he'd probably remembered the building incorrectly. So he walked up to the building's front door and saw a sign taped to it: "Job applicants please come to apartment 11." So, instead of knocking, he opened the door and walked in. The hallway was well-lit and freshly-painted; apparently, somebody had spent some money sprucing the place up recently. Apartment 11 was on the ground floor, at the south end of the hallway. Once he reached the door, Rob knocked on it politely.

"Come in!" The voice was feminine, with an accent that he couldn't place.

He did so, discovering a small office with a desk, a computer and a coffee mug on the desk, an office chair, a small sofa, a door marked "Private", a mirror and a flat-screen TV on the wall, ... and one of the prettiest young women he'd ever met, despite – no, because of – having a build that was more suited to somebody in an MMA arena than on a fashion catwalk. She was shorter than he was (but, then, almost everybody was shorter than he was), with hair down past her shoulders and ... he blinked. Surely she didn't have yellow eyes? It must have been a trick of the light, maybe the same trick that made her dark hair look to be purple. But he noticed in the full-length mirror on the wall that his own hair still looked to be sandy-brown in the same light. (His moustache, alas, was pure white, but that was one of the side effects of living as long as he had.)

"Hello! I'm Rob Donaldson, and I'm here about the help-wanted ad."

"The ad? Not the job itself?" Her smile lit up the room. Then she went back to being all business. "Oh, but I'm being rude. My name is Ere." It had two syllables, the way she pronounced it.

Rob chuckled. "To be honest, Ere, I'm primarily here about the ad, but I am interested in the job as well. Assuming you're willing to hire somebody as old as I am."

"Don't worry about that, Mr. Donaldson; I routinely work with and for people who are much older than you are. From the way you're speaking, I assume you saw one of our special online ads that morphs itself to present an address in the potential applicant's home town or city."

"Exactly. If you don't mind me asking, how did you do that? Was it a man-in-the-middle rig changing the forum's results based on connecting IP addresses, or a dummy server altogether with poisoned entries in the DNS system, or something more esoteric?"

Ere was smiling again. "No, it was magic."

"Magic." Rob didn't say "Pull my other leg, it has bells on," but Ere could tell he was thinking it.

"Yes, magic." She held one hand above the desk chair... which after a short moment levitated up to her glowing hand.

Rob walked over and waved his arm above Ere's hand, but failed to connect with any wires. A quick check with one foot failed to result in him kicking any transparent lifts under the chair, either. Then he saw that it wasn't just Ere's hand that was glowing, but also a set of two triangular marks on her face, one on each cheek.

"How did I miss seeing those facial markings until now... Oh. I see. I've gone mad, and I'm hallucinating that I'm talking with a character from one of my favourite manga."

Ere's smile disappeared, to be replaced with an annoyed expression. "We most specifically said in the ad that we dearly need an open-minded person. And if you were hallucinating, wouldn't you be seeing somebody who's usually on Earthbound duty, such as Verðandi-sama or Skuld-sama?"

Just then, the coffee mug on the desk started to shake... and the Norn of the Future popped out of a glowing ring just above the mug. "You called?"

"Skuld-sama, our interviewee doesn't appear to be as open-minded as we need him to be."

Skuld sighed as she levitated herself down to the floor. "You aren't usually on Earth duty, Ere-san."

"I'm still a trainee; this is the first time I've ever been to Earth."

"Give him a moment. Most humans have trouble accepting the existence of the metanatural, the first time they encounter it."

While the two goddesses' conversation may have continued, Rob didn't hear any more of it. His mind decided that it had had enough surprises for the moment, thank you very much, and it was time to stop accepting input for a moment or two.

When he regained consciousness, he found himself on the sofa, Ere sitting beside him, his glasses in her hand. "Are you okay, Mr. Donaldson?"

"What happened? And... Oh. Right. You're a goddess."

Ere's pretty smile was back. "That's right. If you don't mind me asking, what convinced you?"

Rob thought for a moment. "It was Skuld using the word 'metanatural'. If I was imagining you, she would have said 'supernatural'. How long was I unconscious?"

"Only a few minutes, just long enough for Skuld-sama to make sure you weren't hurt, then return to Heaven."

"She's gone?" Rob looked crestfallen; he hadn't had a chance to say anything to her, not even "hello".

"Don't worry; she said she'll be back later. Right now, she has more important things to do, and I have to explain exactly what the job is and why we want somebody like you to fill the position."

She did so, at length. She also mentioned that there were some other people in other cities who were getting similar descriptions – or, in the case of Garnett Iwasaki in Vancouver, had already been through a similar talk. After handing him an employment contract and giving him time to read it, Ere finished off with, "We're sure that this isn't what you expected the job to be, and we'll understand if you decide you don't want it."

"Why would I not want this job? My skills might be better suited to technical documentation than to building maintenance, but I do have a few years' experience in overseeing a multi-unit residence. I'll just need to pack and move my utility accounts from my current place to here, so I can't start immediately, but if that's okay, you've got yourself a building manager." He used his own pen to sign the contract that he'd just read.

"Don't worry about packing, Donaldson-san," Ere replied as she co-signed the contract. The switch from Mr. Donaldson to Donaldson-san did not go unnoticed; he was part of the team now. "As soon as you accepted the job, we re-wrote history so that you moved in yesterday. That door," Ere gestured to the door marked Private, "opens onto your living room."

The implications of that statement bothered him. "I see. Do I not have free will?"

"Of course you do! And you exercised it by accepting the job here. We just sped things up a bit; we're on a tight timetable in Ottawa."

"How tight?"

"You have less than two days to finalize your working arrangements here and furnish at least a half-dozen apartments before your first tenants move in."

"Have they already signed rental agreements?"

Ere giggled. "They aren't even in this universe yet, Donaldson-san!"

"I see. Do we at least know who they are?"

Ere shook her head. "Urðr-sama, Verðandi-sama, and Skuld-sama know who they should be, but they aren't telling anyone because there's always a possibility that one or more of the demons might change things around, even though they really aren't supposed to. Hild and Kami-sama have an agreement about that right now; we're just watching to find out whether the Other Side will actually hold to that agreement before we start telling building managers who they should expect."

Rob sighed. "So I'm a test case."

Ere nodded in sympathy. "Pretty much, yes. I am allowed to tell you that your first residents should be people you recognize, though. Oh, and the demons working on Earth are probably going to ask you to do additional work for them. You're one of the hires that they didn't get to sign off on, so they're probably going to want to test you."

"You've implied something slightly worrying there."

Ere nodded in acknowledgement. "Yes, that agents from both Heaven and Hell work together to interview many of the applicants. But there aren't enough of us with free time at the moment to interview everybody in pairs, so in some places only somebody from Hell is interviewing the applicants and in other places only somebody from Heaven is interviewing people. Including you." After a beat, she added, "Although I don't know why us working together would worry you."

Rob smiled at Ere's apparent naivety. "Heaven and Hell aren't known, at least here, for being willing to work together. The fact that you are working together makes me think that something extremely bad happened and you have no choice but to work together."

Ere said nothing in reply.

After a moment, Rob asked, "Was my guess too close to the truth?"

Ere still said nothing.

"Why aren't you answering my questions?"

Ere finally answered Rob. "There is a system in place that makes it impossible for Goddesses to reveal protected information. I literally could not reply."

And that reply worried Rob even more than the implication did. "Will that system affect me as well?"

"No! No, it only applies to celestial beings. Goddesses, I should say. Probably Gods as well."

His worry abated, but didn't completely disappear. "I'll keep that in mind, thanks. Will they be trying to get me to sell my soul to them?"

"They shouldn't... but I suggest reading their contracts even more closely than you read ours. The building manager contracts don't have that kind of clause, but if you take an additional position with Funtom Property Management, all bets are off, as you say on Earth."

Rob nodded in understanding. "Important safety tip. Thanks again." After a moment, he asked, "Didn't this used to be a two-storey place?"

"It did, yes," Ere answered. "But Skuld-sama assures me that you're going to need the extra apartments."

It was a rookie mistake, in Rob's opinion. There was – not a "sweet spot", but the exact opposite – where a multi-residence building was too large for one person to manage but too small to justify hiring more than one person to manage it. "The extra apartments actually hurt; there's no way we can make a place this size break even."

"It won't be forever," Ere replied with a smile; an enigmatic smile, for once. "And you can get government subsidies to help."

Rob bit his lower lip, then shook his head. "That money dried up years ago."

"You can get government subsidies to help. I'm sure."

"Well, when a Goddess says she's sure, even a Goddess in training, I'll just have to give it a try."


Brent Laabs
Ventura, California

Are you xenophobic? This is not for you. We dearly need an open-minded person. He or she must be in good health, fluent in English with some Japanese, some knowledge of educational practices or property maintenance essential, willing to assist the people around him or her. Permanent employment, pay and lodging, comprehensive health care, opportunities to learn and teach. Apply online by contacting special.opportunities@funtom.coo.uk.

It had to be the strangest job posting Brent Laabs had ever seen. The kind that would be posted in an old-timey newspaper, printed with real ink. The classified ads section technically still existed in his local paper, but was a shadow of its former self, a mere quarter page dominated by legal notices.

But this ad was on a web forum Brent frequented. It seemed to be some kind of guerrilla marketing tactic, targeted at sci-fi and anime fans. Targeted very well, considering the hubbub in the forum.

What Brent couldn't figure out is why forum-goers were talking about street addresses in the ad. There was clearly no physical location posted. Why would there be, for a group of people who lived all around the world? He supposed it might be possible to display different things to different users – possibly a small hack to the code, as he couldn't find anything out of place in the web frontend.

He pulled up the website of the email address, which displayed the homepage of Funtom Toys. It looked like a perfectly legitimate company, established in 1885, by appointment to Her Majesty. Not the kind of outfit that would need to engage in guerrilla marketing – and certainly not hacking – but stranger things have happened. What kind of toy company offered lodging, he wondered. Santa's Workshop?

By mere coincidence, Brent had recently found himself between jobs, after the buyout at his last workplace. And, well, the job offer was just intriguing enough, and he could probably spin his work experience close to the description if he had to. So Brent sent off a copy of his resume, just in case, and promptly forgot all about it.


September 8, 2016
Buckaroo Banzai
The Banzai Institute for Biomedical Engineering and Strategic Information
9:14 AM ET

Are you xenophobic? This is not for you. We dearly need an open-minded person. He or she must be in good health, fluent in English with some Japanese, some knowledge of business practices or property maintenance essential, willing to assist the people around him or her. Permanent employment, pay and lodging, comprehensive health care, opportunities to learn and teach. You must apply in person at 500 Demott Lane, Somerset, NJ.

"Hey, Buckaroo, what's with this flyer that I picked up at the store?"

Buckaroo Banzai looked up from the watermelon that he was experimenting on and read the piece of paper that Perfect Tommy held up. "That's news to me. I'm not hiring anybody right now."

"It must be a prank, then."


Jenny Everywhere
Live Oak Manor
2535 Confederate Ave, Vicksburg, MI, USA
9:05 AM CT

Are you xenophobic? This is not for you. We dearly need an open-minded person. He or she must be in good health; fluent in English; familiar with personal-scale applications of quantum mechanics, special relativity and general relativity; some knowledge of business practices or property maintenance essential; willing to assist the people around him or her. Permanent employment, pay and lodging, comprehensive health care, opportunities to learn and teach. You must apply in person at 2535 Confederate Ave, Vicksburg, Mississippi, USA.

Jenny read the ad and immediately thought one thing: There was no way that anybody who was native to this here-now would be able to fill all of the requirements. Either it was a joke, or somebody was looking for a Shifter.

And she was one of the better-known Shifters, along with her namesakes – none of whom were in this particular here-now. She knew that for a fact because she couldn't contact any of them mentally. She also couldn't Shift away from this particular here-now (although she could still lowercase-s shift within it), which worried her. Maybe it would be worth her while to answer the ad.

So she did.

It was a fine building, old by Mississippi standards, easily dating from the antebellum period. Oddly, it didn't appear to have an outbuilding for the servants' quarters that she would have expected a building that old and that large to have, but that might simply be a matter of the outbuilding being destroyed during the Battle of Vicksburg or somebody selling off part of the estate in the century and a half after the war.

The driveway was paved. Perhaps other improvements had been added as well, she thought as she walked along that driveway and up to the house itself... where she noticed that the plaster was too new, but almost period-appropriate. Either somebody had gone to a great deal of trouble to maintain the building using early-1870s materials and techniques – which were too new for keeping the building vintage and too old to appeal to somebody who would pave the driveway – or the building was no more native to this here-now than she was.

Somebody was looking for a Shifter. She was a Shifter. But were they looking for her, specifically? Time to find out just what was going on here, before somebody with less experience Shifting decided to answer the help-wanted ad. She checked that her aviator's goggles were adjusted just so on her forehead; it wouldn't do to make a poor first impression, after all. Knocking at the front door, she then said loudly, "Hello there! I'm here about the job offer!"

"Come in! Welcome to Live Oak Manor... Jenny? Jenny Everywhere?"

Jenny smiled that ready smile that she was so well-known for. "Khonsu! It's good to see you again. How's my favorite Egyptian god of travelers, healing, and the Moon doing?"

"I have to admit that you were right the last time we met, about particular words making a difference in spells. 'Escalated Lunar Healing' does work better than 'Accelerated Lunar Healing'."

"I keep telling you to try 'Moon Healing Escalation'."

"And risk a trademark infringement case? No, thank you." They both laughed. Then he stopped laughing. "I was hoping you were somewhere in this reality, Jenny."

After knowing him for this long, she could tell when her divine friend was kidding around and when he was serious. And she'd never seen Khonsu this serious before. "What's wrong?"

"According to both Heaven and Hell, there were more synchronic alteration events in multiple realities than their systems were ready to handle."

"How many more?"

"They aren't telling us outsiders." Jenny remembered that Khonsu had never picked a side when what he called "that newfangled Zoroastrian dualism" gained ground in the celestial realms. "That isn't stopping them from asking us for help, though. You probably noticed that the building we're in Shifted here."

Jenny nodded. "Yes, and I also noticed that I can't Shift right now. Side-effects of the synchronic alteration events?"

"That's putting it mildly. Those realities are all locked down to minimize the damage done to them."

"How many realities had these events? No, never mind, you already said they aren't telling you. But that doesn't explain why I can't Shift anywhere, unless I've been particularly unlucky in my choices of there-thens."

"This particular here-now is also locked down. I've been led to believe that the people responsible for those alteration events are being Shifted into this here-now, along with their karass."

She noticed his equivocation. "How many people are being Shifted, if that's what's happening?"

"Hundreds, that I know about."

Jenny whistled in amazement. "That's a lot of culture shock."

"And that's why I was hoping you were in this reality, Jenny. We need people who can empathize with the involuntary Shifters, to ease their arrivals and look after them. We're buying buildings where they can live until we can unlock this here-now."

"You said 'we'. So you've picked a side now?"

Khonsu shook his head. "Both sides are working together on this one."

That brought Jenny's smile back. "I should have known you'd remain neutral. If I take the job, what's in it for me?

"Besides a salary and a roof over your head, you mean. I know you too well, Jenny. There will be many opportunities here to meet people you've never imagined. And I will personally inform the other Jennys that you are still alive, as soon as I am able to do so."

"That takes a load off my mind. Okay, I'm in."

A contract manifested itself between them, with their names already signed to it. Which Jenny expected; whenever she'd made an agreement with Khonsu in the past, their word was literally their bond.

"Thank you, Jenny. Now, you need to know what I was doing when you arrived. You already know that this building comes from a different here-now. What you might not know is that it's described in a work of fiction here. I was watching the episode of the television series that features this house when you arrived."

"I think that's my job now." Jenny's words and smile reassured Khonsu.

"Thank you, Jenny. I have a cellphone for you," he passed the device to her as he mentioned it.

"That'll be useful." She flipped it open. "Area code 500?"

"It's a 'follow me' area code in this here-now. You should never get roaming charges anywhere in the United States."

"You do know me too well. I assume the rest of the number is bad luck to balance out the good luck of having that area code, right?"

Khonsu nodded. "It wasn't my idea to give you the number 867-5309, Jenny."

"This isn't the first time I've had that phone number. I'm used to it." She noticed that he was heading toward the front door. "Leaving so soon?"

"I am a god of travellers, Jenny. I've been here for too long as it is."

"You always use that excuse."

"Because it's true. Oh, there's one more thing. Could I impose on you to carry out a job interview in Pensacola tomorrow, please?"

"Why can't you... no, let me guess. You can't identify yourself as a god to a monotheist, right?"

"Exactly. I suspect that this particular monotheist wouldn't believe me if I did. And I mustn't lie to a human and claim that I'm not a god."

"Sure, I can do that for you, as long as you give me the paperwork. Now go on, get out of here and let me work."

"If you insist." Khonsu's smile was as wide as Jenny's.

"May the wind ever be at your back, old friend."

"May your endeavours go well, my friend." And he was gone, down the driveway.

Even without looking at her job description, Jenny knew that she had a lot of work to do. But she trusted her friend; if Khonsu thought that it was important to watch the show that Live Oak Manor was from, she'd better hurry up and do just that.

An hour later, she had two things on her to-do list. She started with the more important one: was there still a temporal portal behind the second door to the right at the top of the stairs? She checked, and there was. "Better lock that door and put up a sign," she said to herself before doing just that.

Then she looked at the less-important matter, in that it only affected one here-now: were there still enough explosives in the secret room in the library to blow the building to bits? She opened the secret door, and discovered a cache of TNT, black-powder weapons, black powder and shot.

But before she could do anything about that, she heard a crash from the back yard of the house. Time obviously being of the essence, she shifted over to see that a DeLorean with some very recognizable customizations had crashed into what appeared to be a 1960s-era London Police Public Call Box – it looked like the car had swerved to avoid hitting two men wearing '60s-era slacks and turtlenecks, an attractive young woman wearing a casual outfit out of the mid-1970s, a couple wearing outfits straight out of the Orlando Furioso... and two small ponies, one with a gray coat, a yellow mane, and wings, and the other with a light-brown coat, a dark-brown mane, and wearing a starched collar and a bow tie. Next to the call box a 1980s-style phone booth suddenly slammed into the ground in a shaft of blue light. As red lighting crackled across its surface, its door folded open and two teenaged boys fell out of it, followed by a pair of teen girls who stepped elegantly over them.

She'd dealt with situations like this before.

"Hello, everyone! Are the people in the car okay?"


Artie Duncan
Artie's Artery
114 French Street, New Brunswick, NJ, USA
11:00 AM ET

Artie Duncan found himself waking up a good hour before he normally would, but feeling strangely well-rested. The Artery normally closed at 1:30 AM and cleanup usually took another hour or more before he was able to climb the stairs to his apartment above the club and crawl into bed. So days he woke before noon were rare. And days that he woke before noon and was well-rested – they fuckin' never happened.

Scowling, Artie threw off the covers, swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and slipped his feet into the pair of well-worn slippers that waited for him on the floor. He levered himself up, wincing slightly at the aches and pains that sixty-two years on this Earth had left him with, and shuffled over to the window that overlooked French Street to draw back the curtains.

He froze, the curtains still in his hands, at the sight revealed.

"The fucking hell? What happened to Magyar Bank?" The three-story white bank building with its mostly blank front had been replaced overnight by a nine-story stepped building of beige concrete and grey-green glass. At least Kim's Bike Shop was still there.

Artie frowned and took another look at the street. The cars were strange. He peered left and right out of the window, almost pressing his face up against the glass to get a good angle. Except for a couple that were clearly old junkers, pretty much every vehicle that wasn't a box truck or delivery van had a rounded, almost blobby, futuristic look to them.

And there were more buildings in the distance to the right, toward the hospital, that he didn't recognize.

"Fuckin' weird," he muttered to himself as he turned around and made his way to the bathroom.

----

After getting dressed and making himself a brunch, Artie had decided to take a stroll down French Street to see what else had changed. But when he reached the bottom of the stairs to his apartment and opened the back door to the club building, he found the usual newspaper waiting on the short stoop. He picked it up, unrolled it and shook it out once before glancing at the masthead. Since when was the Home News the Home News Tribune? Then he saw the date.

"Fuckin' hell," he muttered as he stared at the newspaper in his hand. Twenty-fuckin'-sixteen? No wonder he felt so well-slept, he was Rip van fuckin' Winkle.

He shook his head. "Them characters over at the Banzai Institute, I bet. I swear, the guy goes through one mountain and he thinks he can fuck with the entire world." His eyes fell on the day's headlines. "Who the hell are Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton?" he growled, completely mispronouncing the first name. "And what the hell is Donald Trump doin' running for President?"

"Mr. Duncan? Mr. Arthur Duncan?" A man's voice startled him out of his angry reverie.

"Who wants to know?" Artie demanded as he folded up the paper and shoved it under one arm. He studied the fellow who had come up on him unawares. He looked like a lawyer: expensive-looking charcoal suit, probably Italian; shiny black shoes, definitely Italian and also expensive; red silk tie, knotted just so; and a leather briefcase in one hand. His hair was blond, and his eyes... Artie took a second glance. Nah, they couldn't be dark red. Must be the crazy day messing with him. And there was something predatory about him, almost... feline. And Artie had no idea where that thought came from.

The guy raised the hand not holding the briefcase, and by the time it reached chest level there was a card in it. "My name is Welsper, Adam Welsper. I am part of an organization which is providing aid to certain individuals who have recently found themselves... displaced?" He raised a knowing eyebrow.

Artie grimaced as he yanked the paper out from under his arm and brandished it at Welsper. "You mean like thirty-two freakin' years in time displaced?"

Welsper nodded, a faint smile on his lips. "Precisely." He gestured at the club. "Shall we continue this inside your place of business? I have a considerable amount of information for you."

Artie studied him for a moment, his head tilted slightly, before shrugging. "Sure. What the hell. Ain't like I'm likely to be openin' tonight." He turned and opened the door.

"Oh, you might be surprised," Welsper said behind him.

----

Nine hours later, in the small backstage area the Artery provided its performers, Artie stood in the shadows with a scotch on the rocks in his hand. He looked out over the band playing on the stage at the eager crowd filling the club and smiled. He didn't pretend to understand it, but as far as the people in this version of Earth were concerned – and wasn't that idea a kick? – he and the Artery had been here for almost twenty years. He had a full staff, including a couple guys who were convinced they'd been working for him since 1998. He had a valid liquor license. He had long-standing contracts with suppliers to keep the club in booze and food. He had a full lineup of acts scheduled for the next two months – includin' Buckaroo Banzai and his band – and twice as many more wantin' to prove they were worth booking. And he had a loyal crowd of regulars, includin' folks who credited him with revivin' the live music scene in New Brunswick after it almost died in the early Nineties. And if he needed anything else, anything at all, that Welsper character promised he could deliver.

To hell with what year it was. To hell with what world it was. Artie Duncan couldn't ask for more than that. In the shadows he raised his glass and toasted the crowd, the band... the world.

He was home.


September 9th, 2016
Hagall
Somewhere in the Darién Gap, near the Panama-Colombia border
7:47 AM EST/COT


Salem pushed herself up to hands and knees and shook her head to clear it. "What... just happened?" she murmured. Reaching out for her seat with one hand she dragged herself to her feet and looked around the meeting chamber as she tried to drive the fog from her mind. Her loyal followers were scattered across the room as though thrown by a giant, all as unconscious as she had just been moments before.

Why had she been unconscious? Salem wracked her brain for the last thing she remembered. Her eyes widened.

The relics!

They had been laid out on the table before her, and she had been only a moment away from using them to finally summon the brother gods to end Remnant, and with it her cursed existence. She crouched to look under the table, then sacrificed elegance to dash to one side of the room then the other, searching frantically – and in vain.

Where were they?

"You won't find them," a melodious alto voice said from behind her. Salem spun with a snarl to see an unfamiliar woman perched insouciantly upon the end of the great slab of stone that made up the table. She took in her appearance in a glance: astoundingly beautiful, with long platinum blonde hair tied into multiple ponytails with white bows, a voluptuous figure not at all hidden by a shimmering green dress with a tiny skirt and a décolletage so low as to be all but topless, and marks not unlike tiny targets in bright purple upon her cheekbones. She sat with one leg crossed over the other at the knee, a white calf-height boot bobbing merrily as she leaned back on one arm.

She hadn't been there a moment ago. Salem glanced past her to the chamber's great doors, which were still locked and barred to deter anyone who might be misguided enough to think they could stop her from summoning the Two Brothers. She turned her eyes back to the blonde, who seemed entirely unconcerned about whom she faced – indeed, she gave off an air of amusement.

"What did you say?" Salem demanded.

The infuriating woman smirked at her. "The relics. You won't find them."

"Who are you? What have you done with them?" Salem raised one hand and called her magic into it; the blonde simply lifted an eyebrow while looking unimpressed.  Most people were terrified of Salem at first sight; her ashen skin was marked by dark veins, her eyes glowed red with jet sclera, and her demeanor was always imperious.  And this woman had waltzed right into her fearsome lair without a care in the world.

"This one," she replied with a smirk, "is Hagall, and Hagall has done nothing with your toys." Hagall gestured dismissively with her free hand. "You were so close, and then suddenly you were cheated of your rightful goal. Isn't that just like the gods?"

Salem studied her. "And what would you know of the gods?"

The smirk grew broader. "Oh, Hagall would know many things. Like, for instance, the two brothers you intended to call are not the only gods – just the only two who cared to slum around your out-of-the-way backwater world." She shook her head, making a "tsk-tsk" sound. "What a mess the young ones leave behind them when they tire of their toys." Hagall hopped off the table and approached with a hip-rolling strut that Salem knew would have had any human male following her, his tongue hanging out. "You didn't really think they'd actually come back just because you put those four trinkets together, did you? What faith you had in them," she added with a sneer.

"Who are you?" Salem demanded again, her temper rising at the jibe. She prepared to loose her magic at the woman should she not get a satisfactory answer.

Said woman was now within arm's reach of her. Irrelevantly, Salem noticed that she wore a studded choker around her neck. "Hagall is Hagall," she said clearly and carefully, as though lecturing a slightly dim child. "And Hagall is second only to Hild in the forces of Hell, the equals and eternal enemies of the gods." With a speed beyond anything human, one hand shot forward and pinched out the magic floating in Salem's grasp, snuffing it as though it were a candle flame. "You wield no power that can threaten any of us, just as you could not threaten the two brothers." She sniffed. "As weak as they are."

Salem stared in shock at her empty hand as Hagall turned on her heel and strode away, carefully stepping over the prone bodies of her followers. "Now, Hagall is here not to play, but to pass on information." She paused and glanced back over her shoulder. "Hagall suggests you pay attention. Hagall will not be repeating herself."

"Go on," Salem ground out as she clenched then lowered her hand.

Hagall turned again to face her, smirking once more. "Just as you were about to use the brothers' relics, their own power thwarted you. You, this tower and some of the lands surrounding it were torn from your world and dropped into this one, called 'Earth'." She paused and put a finger to her lip and effected an exaggerated expression of realization. "Why, you are a remnant of Remnant. How droll." Dismissing the thought with a careless gesture, Hagall continued. "You came with it, as did your minions – including a couple Hagall was sure were dead before. How curious." She sniffed and shrugged. "A few others from Remnant, children mostly, were drawn along with you due to the ties of Fate. They will arrive elsewhere and elsewhen. For now, though, this is all of Remnant that exists on this world."

"The relics," Salem said slowly. "What has happened to the relics?"

"Scattered to the four winds, and no one cares to find them." An "oh well, what can you do?" expression flitted across her face. "The gods are preoccupied, they are dealing with yet another catastrophe. A dozen universes and more that they were supposed to be watching over have all unexpectedly produced energies that have damaged the fabric of reality. They and their allies are scrambling to keep all of existence from unravelling – and as it inevitably does, bits of other worlds arrive in this one." That infuriating smirk was back. "Like you and your playthings."

A familiar anger grew in Salem's breast. "So once again, the gods have failed those who relied upon them."

Hagall shrugged carelessly. "Mm. It could be said, yes."

Salem spun to gaze out one of the windows that lined the chamber, looking across the fragment of her once-great demesne to the line of verdant green lit with brilliant sunlight that appeared to mark the extent of her control. "And what am I to do, now that I am here on this 'Earth'?"

Hagall gave a bark of delighted laughter. "Hagall will give you a gift that no celestial has ever given you: Hagall will allow you to do whatever you want to do! The gods are too busy to pay attention to you, and Hell will not care." A sly look appeared on her face. "Has Hagall yet mentioned that there are no Huntsmen, nor academies training them, nor even Dust in this new world?"

Salem turned and looked her over, one eyebrow raised. "Indeed?" She turned back to the window and to that distant line of green. "And the gods are concerned with fixing their latest disaster, leaving us to deal with the fallout. I do believe I should teach them a lesson."

There was a rustle of cloth at her side, and Salem glanced to the right to see Hagall standing next to her at the window. The blonde woman turned her head and met Salem's gaze. "Hagall likes how you think."


Niflheim
One hour later

Hagall sauntered into the operations center that had been hastily assembled to coordinate Hell's half of the response to the crisis. The room was filled with dozens of tables on which Nidhogg workstations had been haphazardly perched amidst piles of documentation in formats ranging from runestones to parchment and paper to isolinear rods. Dozens of Niflheim's finest were frantically at work, coordinating with their Celestial counterparts as both sides of the Great Conflict desperately sought to ensure that there remained something over which to fight. Lesser demons were running to and fro, hand-delivering records and reports for collation and comparison with Nidhogg data, then dashing back out with orders to deliver to operatives in the field.

She carefully picked her way through the narrow aisles formed by the rows of tables, nodding to a few acquaintances – no one in Hell had friends, after all – as she did: Halvalth, Thrym, Mokkurkalfi, and a few others, some of whom actually acknowledged her with a curt, distracted nod of their own. It took longer than one would expect – several minutes' worth of navigating through the crowded and bustling room – but eventually Hagall made it to her own dedicated workstation. It sat on the elevated dais that overlooked the entire room from one end, set just to the right of Hild's own far more elaborate station. Hagall suppressed a smirk at the sight of the Daimakaichō's empty seat, and settled herself into her own.

Within minutes she was casually wiping all evidence of Salem's arrival from the system, marking the changes as corrections and trusting to certain long-established services – once one of the few cases of cooperation between the Realms – to obediently and automatically update Yggdrasil's own records accordingly.


Rob Donaldson
Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
8:03 AM ET

Yesterday, Rob had a cheque in his hand and instructions to open a business account so that government subsidy money could be deposited to it directly – enough money to pay the utility bills and property taxes for a year, and buy new appliances and basic furniture for the apartments. He had proof that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation did not work that way or that quickly... but there it was.

Now, he had a business permit in his hand and the appliances were being delivered the day after they had been ordered. He was sure that city hall and large-appliance stores did not work that quickly... but there it was, and there they were.

The business permit and the new bank account were in the name of a numbered corporation that didn't exist two days before (and wasn't owned by Rob, but rather by a British corporation called Funtom Property Management). Simply visiting a lawyer should not have been sufficient to make that happen, and definitely not that fast... but there it was.

Rob turned to Ere. "Okay, it's happening. I suppose I have you and your colleagues to thank for that." After a pause with no reply, Rob continued, "But this is only four impossible things. Give me two more to believe, and then I can have breakfast."

"Lewis Carroll."

"The books are eminently quotable."

She nodded. "Quotable, or reference-able. Here is a fifth 'impossible thing.'" Ere handed Rob a box. "Cellphones."

Rob opened the box and took one of the phones out. It was lightweight and stylish, assuming your style tended toward white with red trim. He noticed a maker's mark where he expected to see a logo or a brand name – a mallet-style hammer inside a circle.

Rob blinked. It was still there.

"Okay, I've read Bob Schroeck's stories. Either this is a joke, or ... No, that's the impossible thing here. These were made by Skuld, but the two of you are entrusting them to a mere mortal. Specifically, me."

"I work for Skuld-sama, not with her. Other than that, you're quick on the uptake for somebody who hasn't had breakfast yet. The black phone is yours – it has an app that recognizes Japanese text and displays an English translation. You're getting that just in case there's anything wrong with the translation effect we're giving the new arrivals. All of the phones have Blackberry-level encryption and security." Ere handed Rob a USB memory stick. "And this contains VPN client software and URLs for a private chat room where you can discuss matters of interest with other people in your situation."

"Japanese? French would have been more useful."

"For you, perhaps. But not for the people we expect to arrive any minute now. They shouldn't see me yet; you'll have to take the lead from here on."

Rob sighed and looked off into the heavens. "When something seems too good to be true, it probably is. I assume these people aren't showing up on a bus."

There was no reply. Rob looked around – only to discover he was alone.

He sighed again, longer and deeper. "Maybe I should get breakfast now anyway. I just know the sixth impossible thing involves filling this building with transfictional people. The setup's too obvious." After a beat, he added, "And I just lampshaded that. All The Tropes has ruined my life."


9:25 AM ET

Rob had only heard something like that sound once: when a lightning bolt had struck the chimney of the house next door to where he was living at the time. But it wasn't raining, and the sound had come from the parking lot, not the building's chimney. "What the hell ..."

He looked out the window – and failed to see any destruction. He did see a group of five teen-aged Asian girls, two dressed alike in what were obviously school uniforms. "I suppose these are the people we were expecting."

By the time he reached the back door, he could hear them arguing.

"Kuroko, what did you do?"

"It wasn't me, oneesan!"

"Do you see any other teleporters here?"

Oh.
Hell.
A teleporting teenager named Kuroko. Kuroko Shirai. A Certain Scientific Railgun. And the girl in the same school uniform looked like the character "Railgun" – Mikoto Misaka. The others looked like their friends from the anime. What were their names again?

And why were they speaking English?

"Hey ... hey ... Hey!" The one with flowers in her hair – Uiharu? – finally got everyone else's attention.

"What's wrong?"

"My phone isn't connecting."

All four of the other pulled out their phones. "Neither is mine."

"Or mine, except I can see all of your phones," Kuroko said – although her phone had a fancy pull-out display.

Rob decided it was time to make his presence known ... only to realize the tallest of the girls had been keeping one eye on him for a while. He nodded/bowed to her, held out a hand, and tilted his head.

She walked over to him. "Excuse me, sir, but do you speak Japanese?"

Rob smiled. "I don't, but I hear you speaking English."

"Oh. Is that your power?"

He shook his head. "I don't have an esper ability, miss. What language are you hearing me speak?"

"You're speaking English, and now that I think about it, so am I. I thought that I was speaking Japanese. I assume some esper has downloaded the language into my brain somehow for some reason. You seem remarkably calm about having five people suddenly appear on your property. What part of Academy City are we in?"

Shaking his head again, Rob replied, "You aren't in Academy City, miss."

Kuroko's reaction was unexpected. "Inter-city teleportation! Level 5!" Rob didn't know a grin could get that big.

And why was she suddenly taking credit for something she had previously done her best to deny having done in the first place? Rob never did understand how teenagers thought, even back when he was one. But he had to burst her bubble. The sooner he started explaining things, the better. "Not inter-city, miss – inter-dimensional. Oh, but I'm being rude. My name is Rob Donaldson, and I was told to expect a group of people who would arrive in an unusual manner. Would you care to step inside where we can sit down and discuss what's happened?" Seeing four suspicious looks, he continued, "It isn't as if I can confine you."

It took nearly an hour for the girls to get comfortable in the one apartment that had been renovated to be a common "party room", and introduce themselves to Rob (and vice versa). Three of the five were members of "Judgment", which from the description in the light novels Rob had read was a police force in Academy City, their home town. From what they were saying, Academy City covered approximately one-third of the Tokyo that Rob was familiar with. Considering that they were teens and tweens, he wondered for a moment why they were being entrusted with law-enforcement, until he remembered from the source material that they had esper powers. One of the two who wasn't a Judgment officer was Mikoto Misaka, code-named "Railgun" – one of the seven most powerful espers in that city. The other girl actually boasted about having no esper power whatsoever... but Rob got the feeling that her boast was covering a mild inferiority complex.

Then Rob had to explain what had happened to them. "Are any of you familiar with Schrödinger's thought experiment about quantum mechanics?"

"We're espers. Well, Saten-san isn't, but the rest of us are. That's junior-high school work for espers."

"Shirai! There's no need to be like that."

"Sorry, Konori-sempai."

Rob knew he'd need to make a scorecard to keep them straight, at least for the first day or two. (Mii Konori was the one he had spoken with first, the eldest, the tallest, the one with the biggest... tracts of land, and the only one wearing glasses – and the last of that list, by Rob's lights, automatically made her the most attractive of the five girls. Her messy-bob-cut black hair also looked good on her.) But that was a project for later. "Are any of you familiar with the many-worlds interpretation of the thought experiment?"

"Vaguely," replied Konori-san. "You're implying that this is an alternate universe."

"You're saying that we're all isekai characters." The way Misaka-san – Railgun – said that, it obviously wasn't a question.

Rob thought for a brief moment, then decided to treat it as a question and nodded. "Essentially, yes."

"And you're here to help us learn how to live in this world," Shirai-san (the one with her long brown hair in loose twintails) added.

Without hesitation, Rob replied, "Exactly. That's part of my job."

Saten-san (the one with long black hair) commented, "Isekai cliche number one: meet a friendly native as soon as you arrive." Then she took a closer look at Rob and continued, "You obviously aren't going to give us powers, like Guru Clef, since everybody but me already has some. Are we here so you can use our powers, like Louise de la Vallière?"

Rob didn't mind the comparison to someone from Magic Knight Rayearth, but he actually grimaced at being compared to the lead female character from The Familiar of Zero. "Oh, Hell, no!"

They could all hear the disgust in his voice.

"I'm sorry," Saten-san said quietly after a moment while looking at the floor.

Rob sighed. "Please raise your head, Saten-san. And I'm sorry for reacting that way. That was a completely valid question." After a moment, he continued. "Now, take the many-worlds interpretation to its illogical extreme. Universes develop in alternate ways. Different books are written. Different movies are filmed. And some of those works of fiction – for whatever reason – describe events in other universes."

Three of the girls looked puzzled. Mii looked thoughtful. Uiharu (the one with a headband of flowers in her dark hair) asked, "How much do you already know about us?"

"I'll let you watch the anime while I make lunch."

He deliberately left them alone while he went through what was available in his own apartment, finally deciding by default on making sandwiches for everyone.

As he brought a platter of sandwiches into the common room, he heard a plaintive cry.

"We're not even in our home universe! Shirai-san doesn't know how she got us here! People here think we're cartoon characters! How do we go home? Are we ever going to see our families again?"

Rob winced. He had no answer to give, and no way to take her anguish away. Then and there, he resolved to treat her with as much kindness as he could manage without slighting any of his other tenants. "I am sorry, Saten-san. I can't help you get home, but I will help you learn how we do things here as much as I can."

They watched the first two episodes of the anime together.

Then things started getting weird.

"This is very good food, Donaldson-san! If I could eat like this every day, I'd be happy." Saten-san smiled at Rob when she said that.

Rob looked at the platter. The food was still tuna-fish-and-mayonnaise sandwiches. Nothing worth that reaction.

And the looks Saten-san was getting from the others were far out of proportion to the comment... weren't they?

He decided that it was time to distract her from him and hand out the cellphones... only to discover that he had ten phones for five people. This did not fill him with confidence. Noticing that they were already divided into two groups in the box, he checked the names on the first group of phones so he knew who should get which one. Then he checked his own phone, discovering ten numbers already in his contact list – with five names obscured. "I wonder when I'll get to see who's showing up next?" he muttered before heading out to distribute the other five phones.

Then he let them choose apartments. One-bedroom apartments; one thing that he did remember was the hijinks that Shirai-san got up to specifically because she was Misaka-san's roommate. They spread out over the first two floors, in order to have some privacy (whether Shirai-san wanted privacy or not). Saten-san immediately grabbed apartment 12, the apartment between the building office and the common room, claiming that she was making a sacrifice by living in the busiest part of the building... although the others accused her of wanting to be close to Rob. Railgun took apartment 14. At that point, Rob insisted that the others take apartments on the second floor that weren't directly above the office, so Shirai-san took apartment 24 – directly above the common room. Uiharu-san chose apartment 26 because it had a loft bed, and Konori-san moved into apartment 28 because it was an end unit, right beside the fire escape.

In order for them to have some connection to the outside world, Rob supplied a few cheap computers that he'd bought from a refurb shop. He expected complaints about how underpowered they were.

What he got was some unwanted attention.

"Thank you for showing me how to connect to the internet. If there's anything I can do for you, just ask. And I do mean anything."

"That's all right, Uiharu-san." The look on her face made him want to be anywhere else. She was one of the tweens, only 12 – Rob was sure she shouldn't be acting like that. Time to leave her apartment while he still could.

It didn't take long for the next bit of weirdness to make itself known. "Is that violin music?" he asked himself while doing paperwork in his office. "Who has a violin? And who knows how to play ..." Then he remembered that Mikoto knew how – but she rarely played. He wondered where she found a violin.

Then he realized that the piece was from Prokofiev's take on Romeo and Juliet... which worried both him and Shirai-san.

"Disgusting. Playing that for you, and not for me."

"Please don't just teleport into my apartment, Shirai-san."

"Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to make you upset!"

"Out. Now. And don't come back in without my permission."

"I'mSorryI'mSorryI'mSorry!" And she was gone.

At this point, Rob was extremely worried. Kuroko Shirai did not act that way. Not only was he old enough to be her father, he was pretty sure that she was a lesbian. Something was seriously wrong.

Rob decided that it was time to lock the door, before Konori-san made her play. She's sixteen, she's beautiful, and ... misquoting the rest of that Johnny Burnette song was a Very Bad Idea right now. Time to get some help.


Online
12:57 PM ET

ROB_DONALDSON> I hope I have this configured properly.
ROB_DONALDSON> Is anyone else online?
HELPBOT> You are the only person online here right now.
ROB_DONALDSON> Are these conversations being logged?
HELPBOT> No, but HelpBot forwards urgent messages to SysAdmin.
ROB_DONALDSON> Urgent message: The tenants in my building are behaving strangely.
HELPBOT> Please stand by.
.
.
SYSADMIN has logged on
SYSADMIN> How strangely is "strangely"? It's part of your job to help them acclimate to this world.
ROB_DONALDSON> They're acting as if they're romantically attracted to me. They're teenagers, I'm middle-aged.
SYSADMIN> Let me check something.
.
SYSADMIN> Ew! That's way too ecchi!
SYSADMIN> That should never have happened. I'm sorry about the inconvenience.
SYSADMIN> I need to go install a filter.
SYSADMIN has logged off


Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Same time

The violin music trailed off. The texts asking that Rob "friend" Uiharu-san stopped arriving on his phone.

"Do we have anything more substantial for lunch?" Rob wasn't sure whether that comment was a good sign, but at least Saten-san didn't think his sandwiches were the best thing since sliced bread.

And that was a terrible pun.

He unlocked and opened the door to his apartment. "We don't have anything else right now, Saten-san. Somebody needs to go shopping. Sorry."

"Could you do that, Donaldson-san? Uiharu-san and I are still looking through clothing-store websites."

"Sure."

The girls seemed to be back to normal – at least, normal for them. Better yet, Rob wasn't thinking that Konori-san was a possible candidate to share his bed.

Nevertheless, he headed for the grocery store in the nearby shopping mall posthaste. Just in case.


Harley Waters
Pensacola Beach, Pensacola, Florida, USA
Noon CT

Are you xenophobic? This is not for you. We dearly need an open-minded person. He or she must be in good health, fluent in English with some Spanish, some knowledge of business practices or property maintenance essential, willing to assist the people around him or her. Permanent employment, pay and lodging, comprehensive health care, opportunities to learn and teach. You must apply in person at 1841 Via De Luna Street, Pensacola Beach, FL.

Harley Waters looked from the street at the property that he'd been hired to maintain. It wasn’t a bad site, just a bit out of the way if you didn't have a ride – which definitely didn't apply to Harley. The cedar-sided two-story wouldn't be hard to maintain externally with its metal roof. Pulling his bike into the lot behind the building, the only downside he could see was that it was set up similar to an old row house, which meant that the wet wall was likely to be the centerline structural wall.

After parking, he took a walk around the building. The central air unit was sufficient for the building's size and the exterior unit was heavily caged to prevent the theft of the copper inside it. Harley also checked the 20KW propane-powered generator (that would kick in when the power was inevitably knocked out by one storm or another) in a small shed that was attached to the building. The shed also protected the power meter, a 4-inch water well, and a 120-gallon propane tank.

Harley immediately put "move the fuel tank outside" at the top of his to-do list. He disagreed with his father on more things than he cared to list, but one thing they both agreed on was how dangerous it was to keep a fuel tank in an enclosed space, even a tank that was shorter than he was. Sure, put it in a cage, but don't put it indoors. Or anywhere near the bikes, either. His father loved motorcycles the way some people loved well-made guns, and keeping both people and bikes safe was something that he'd taught Harley by example. And Harley followed the example his father had set here, except that there was no way he'd be caught dead riding a Harley-Davidson ever again. And thinking about that life lesson made Harley wonder how his family was doing; he'd have to ask when he sent them his new address. Not that he expected a reply, of course.

He headed into the building, having already claimed the middle apartment on the sound side for himself. He had grown up in the area so he knew exactly what kind of storms could roll out of the Gulf of Mexico at practically any moment. While the area usually had a few days' warning about hurricanes, plain old gulf storms that blew up in a night or so could be almost as nasty, and gale force winds were nothing to sneeze at. Besides, parking for the apartments were on the soundward side of the building, so this way he could actually park his bike right outside his apartment.

While he had a moment, Harley decided to finish unpacking. His clothing, his kitchen utensils, and most of his furniture were already unpacked, but his library shelves and personal electronics still needed to be set up. He also had to install that special box in his bedroom closet: the gun safe. After he'd secured the safe to the floor, he opened it and finally took both of his pistols – the Kahr P9 that had been a high-school graduation gift from Harley's parents, and the Ruger LC9 that he'd bought three years ago – out of their transport cases and put them into the gun safe. (Harley had never fired either pistol in anger, but he'd used them often enough at shooting ranges that he felt confident that he could.) He then put his ammunition (both pistols were chambered for 9×19mm) into the safe, and closed and locked it. Then he set up the shelves and started unpacking his books. Of course, his collection of Chilton's Motorcycle Repair Manuals from various decades were the first books onto the shelves.

Once that was done, he took the time to set up his personal electronics. Wiring a television and a sound system together was easier than wiring a bike's wiring harness, and setting up his personal computer was even easier. By the time he'd put away his toolbox, his computer had connected to his new ISP. (Harley had never heard of www.buildingmanagers.yggdrasil before he took this job, but he didn't have any problems connecting to their server.) And his inbox, despite the fact that it had connected to his email and social media feeds and consolidated his messages for him once he'd entered his account names and passwords, was remarkably free of spam. One email caught his eye – the one from his new boss. Harley opened that one first.

Mr. Waters,
I have attached a zip file with the personal files of the tenants who should be arriving shortly. Please see to their care; they are very much in need of a seaside vacation after what they have recently been through. Ms. Katsuragi will be in charge of the teenagers; she is no fool, and we expect she will listen to local experts on how and where she might want to lead her charges. Funtom Property Management trusts that their stay will be pleasant and relaxing, and will not bring any hardships to them, or to you beyond your regular maintenance duties.
Sebastian Michaelis, Funtom Property Management

This was the first time any of the higher-ups at Funtom had contacted him directly – he had been hired by somebody named Jenny who came special from Vicksburg for the interview – but that hiring agent told Harley who was going to send him that file, and the name and email address checked out.

So he read the file. Even if the name "Katsuragi" was setting off alarms in his mind.

By the time he'd finished, that alarm had shifted to a full Pattern Blue Alert. He knew every single one of those names, and the photos that accompanied the dossiers were either very good CG, good cosplayers, or ... Harley didn't want to finish that thought.

Hoping to find out something – anything – that would help him make sense of what he'd been told by Mr. Michaelis, he logged in to the forum that he'd been told other Funtom building managers hung out on, introduced himself on the "New Hires" board, and started reading the posts in the other boards.

An hour later, he was even more confused than he'd been to begin with. There were only four other people on the forum – Jenny (the one from Vicksburg, it seemed like), Garnett, Bob, and Rob – and they were talking about having met people who made the survivors of Second Impact look normal.

Just what had he signed up for?


"Kestrel"
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
8:25 PM ET

Are you xenophobic? This is not for you. We dearly need an open-minded person. He or she must be in good health, fluent in English, network security expertise required, some knowledge of business practices or property maintenance essential, willing to assist the people around him or her. Permanent employment, pay and lodging, comprehensive health care, opportunities to learn and teach. You must apply in person at 780 E 1st St, Boston, MA

A man in a trenchcoat approached the large harbor-front office with more than a bit of trepidation. He had done job interviews before – normal job interviews – the sort of assessments supposed to involve office rooms with engineers in well-lit buildings. Not empty warehouses. In the middle of the night. Next to rusty dead-looking container ships. Even the port was mostly quiet now, the air redolent with salt and resounding with the incessant buzz of an electrical substation behind the building.

But his recruiter had been promising the sky was the limit on this one if he could get hired, so he gathered his courage. The door opened with a soft click, and he stepped into the dimly lit building. He hoped it was worth waiting for, and that he hadn't wandered into some sort of danger...

"Excellent! You're five minutes early, Mr Thompson. My employer appreciates promptness."

Kestrel yelped out in surprise – he convinced himself it was a perfectly respectable battle-cry and not simply screaming like a girl – and attempted to dodge any incoming attacks with a lunge to the right. Unfortunately, a trench coat is not what you want to be wearing when trying to dodge. It's pretty cold on the Boston waterfront at night, even this early in the fall, and even colder on the ground where Kestrel ended up. At least the weather makes a great excuse for people who might ask him why he's wearing a trench coat.

"...Hi? Are you... Sebastian?" He stood up and pretended to be dignified while brushing dust off his coat.

"Yes, that's me. I apologize if I... startled you." The man was... dark. Dark hair, dark eyes, black suit, gleaming white teeth. Do humans have that many teeth? Kestrel was pretty sure he didn't have that many teeth. Why was he smiling like that? Cautiously, Kestrel reached out to shake the man's hand. His grip was firm and he wore white silk gloves – who does that anymore?

Collecting himself and trying to get his heart under control, Kestrel decided to assert a bit of his own authority – Sebastian might be the one hiring, but Kestrel was asked for by name. "Is there somewhere we can sit and discuss the job offer? It's a bit... unlit in here."

He snapped his fingers, and lights turned on throughout the building. Kestrel thought it was a neat trick. The room was nearly empty except some boxes in the far corner, some catwalks and an elevated 'managers' office above the main floor. The neater trick was the sudden appearance of a table and chairs five feet to our left – it appeared just as the lights turned on. Kestrel doubted it had been there, hiding in the darkness beforehand. He blanked his mind, counted to three, pictured something unrelated, then reviewed his memories of the not-quite-impenetrable dark from when he had walked in, before he was startled. No, he decided, those had definitely not been there.

He looked suspiciously at Sebastian, who was still standing next to the now-closed doorway and smiling even wider. He moved to the table and chairs, made sure they were solid, examined their tops for clues, and took a deep whiff. Modern, nothing obvious, no marks or cracks in the floor where they might have come 'up' through a trap door – and they smelled like machine oil, ozone and... sulphur?

He stepped back and took a whiff of the air farther from the table – the machine oil smell permeated the room, but the others were absent. Approaching again, he looked under the table – the floor was rough concrete, not well-finished, but showed no obvious marks, and the bottom of the table...

Stamps? No... seals. Over-fancy and... wait, they have the names written around... he recognized at least... 'Okay, that one doesn't belong there', he thought.

He studied the seats arranged around the table. Then he finally chose to sit at the chair next to the 'Naberius' seal – he was pretty sure he could use all the help with rhetoric he could get. And honestly he wasn't sure what to think about some of the other... labels.

Sebastian, who had curiously been watching the applicant the entire time, was pleased that the applicant had passed the first test. The choice of chair hardly mattered, but the suspicion that led him to choose his chair was excellent indeed. The suspicious nature would matter a great deal for this job, and it spoke highly of Kestrel that he valued his suspicious over the propriety of interview behavior.

Sebastian grinned even wider as he sat on the left side of the 'head' of the table, assuming the seat marked 'Lucifer' was in fact the head. To the best of Kestrel's recollection, the seat chosen by Sebastian was marked 'Ronové', though he wasn't about to peek under the table to check it now. He made a mental note to look up that name in the Ars Goetia later. He knew for a fact that Lucifer wasn't in the Goetia, though of course it was only one chapter long.

"Thank you for coming, Mr. Robert Thompson. Did you bring your laptop?"

He was startled out of his musings by Sebastian's question. After a second's hesitation, he replied, "Of course. But please, call me Kestrel."

"But of course, Kestrel." A nom de guerre was relatively common in his line of work, after all.

Kestrel put his laptop bag on the table and pulled out a chunky, old, beaten up 'work' laptop. It had two 'original' parts left – the screen and the case. Everything else had been replaced at some point, so he supposed it was not technically that old – but it was still using a three-year-old processor, which seemed outdated to him.

Sebastian directed, "Good, now connect to the WiFi."

Kestrel opened the lid, and it booted instantly. Solid state drives were nice like that. "Password?" Sebastian didn't say anything... so he took that as a challenge. There had been a 'network security expertise' requirement for this job, which was why he brought the 'work' laptop. He pulled up an old homework project – literally a homework assignment from when he was doing post-grad courses in CS – and ran it. A minute later, he found out the network password was 'Ar5Goetia' – cheeky bugger. "Ha, ha. Now what?"

Sebastian somehow grinned wider. "Now, you try to keep your laptop running for five minutes." He sat back, and Kestrel started to hear from all around him a creepy, multi-voice, static-filled chuckle – it was very familiar. He checked his system and network logs – somebody was hammering the laptop's firewall. 'Oh, so that's how they were playing this?' he thought. Suddenly, the 'creepy atmosphere' made a lot more sense to Kestrel – he was being tested by Black-hats. They thought they could put him off balance with a 'freaking the norms' routine. Well, he knew full well that two could play that game.

He let his firewall do its job while he looked for... ah ha! Bluetooth speakers. Grabbing a modified 'boosted' Bluetooth antenna out of his bag, he plugged it into the laptop and ran one of his 'prank' programs – the creepy not-voice coming out of the speakers cut off. As well as, apparently, the infra-sound he had been feeling-hearing since he walked in – he could suddenly hear the 'absence' of it. He felt somehow less jumpy than he had been so far, and considered it a clever hack. In place of that, the speakers now played a cheerful bit of music started up... before quickly turning to something less cheerful.

Sebastian's phone rang. Kestrel's computer pinged. He turned the volume on the song down and looked up at Sebastian with a question plain on his face. Sebastian just smiled wolfishly and answered the phone, putting it immediately on speaker phone.

"Tha-a-at was a-a mistake, hacker." Now Kestrel to recognized the voice that had laughed at him earlier. Someone had gone and made a SHODAN voice emulator. Cute. He was betting it was a complex text-to-speech program. "Your simple ma-machine has bec-come a-a part of-of me n-n-now. O-oh l-look, you-ou wer-er-er foo-oo-oolish-sh eno-ou-ough to-o-o leave-eave me-e-e a-a-a cre-ed-ed-it-it ca-a-ard..." Kestrel waited a few more seconds for his adversary to realize his mistake. It said, "Wha-a-a-at...?"

Kestrel grinned, and decided to cut the emulator off before it could get any more annoying. "Stop that stupid voice program and listen for a bit. I'm not some idiot who's going to make a mistake just because of some creepy voices and weird building. The SHODAN thing was a nice touch, but way over the top. I'm betting you regret that, now that your processors are spinning their wheels as fast as they can go, yeah? You fell for the oldest trick in the counter-hacking book – you jumped right into my honeypot the instant I opened an 'insecure' connection on my box... and now you're infected. If you hurry, you might not have to re-install your machine's OS... but by that time, this test will be over. Happy hunting!"

"In-n-n-se-ct-ct-ct! I-I-I-" click. Sebastian hung up the phone just as the song Kestrel started on the speakers finished up.

He unplugged the Bluetooth super-antenna, and looked up to the interviewer. "So, any more tests?"

Sebastian smiled and shook his head. "No, I think Lord Phantomhive will be quite pleased by your performance. The contract will be forwarded to you... with a bonus, if you can start immediately."

Kestrel looked a bit concerned. "How immediately?"

A second later the doors opened again, and some professional looking men in uniforms started coming in with various furniture-sized boxes and other things that... looked like sci-fi movie props. "Very immediately."

When they rolled past with something he could have sworn looked like one of the GladOS AI cores the player tosses into the disposal at the end of Portal, followed by a 'Sugar Rush Speedway' arcade machine... Kestrel suddenly had to wonder exactly how much of the past few minutes had really been a fake-out.


September 10, 2016
"Kestrel"
Warehouse 13, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
10:05 AM ET

Kestrel's new workplace at Boston Harbor was not quite on the waterline, but merely one road back. Across the street from the a sunlit park and surrounded by open space, it might have been a quiet place, if not for the engines running throughout the nearby container terminal, and the low hum of the power substation immediately behind the building. For a residence of machine life forms, a good power supply was a must.

The place itself was a long, boxy brick building, three stories tall. Once home to a shipping and distribution company, it was divided into two parts. About one-third of it was devoted to offices, with a long hallway on each floor leading to rooms of various sizes. Fortunately, this company had believed in walls instead of the open floor plan, so they could be used to provide additional security, containment, and protection for some of the most troublesome AIs.

The rest was a large warehouse, with a pair of loading docks for trucks. Since all of the computers had been deposited in this room, Kestrel had spent nearly all of his time in this large room. Given his mission to take care of these... artifacts, he had already taken to calling the building Warehouse 13.

The Manager's Office of the warehouse was a raised box-like structure at the same height as the catwalks that criss-crossed the warehouse floor. It was built into the east wall of the warehouse and had windows on all four sides – although the outwards-facing window was boarded over and tiny besides; the other three that looked out on the warehouse floor were large bay windows. They offered an excellent view of the floor below, and the 'artifacts' for which Kestrel was now responsible.

They were impossible, of course. He had verified every single one to be absolutely certain that they weren't movie props or fakes of one form or another. Actually, most of them were made out of hardware so old that he could probably emulate them on his laptop... but that wasn't really the point. Because all of them were impossible in one way or another.

The MCP hardware was the most realistic – it featured normal microchips, circuit boards, and other familiar pieces Kestrel could explain. What he couldn't explain was the fact that several of the devices soldered on those boards seemed to be experimental fiber-optics nodes transferring data far faster than modern systems were capable of – and made from parts clearly manufactured in the mid-'80s. Impossible.

The various arcade games were also pretty 'normal' technology-wise. He couldn't find anything physically 'off' about any of them – but the level of... interactivity they provided when played: Impossible. Especially the racing game – it claimed, when you read the help menus, that you were playing online against random other people around the world – but it was literally impossible for it to be connected to anything outside this building. The electrical shielding built into the walls of the building ensured that.

Things got weirder from there. He had no idea how HAL actually worked... and was deliberately trying to avoid thinking about AM. Kestrel posited that his hardware was powered by pure maliciousness – the fact that AM was in its own private Faraday cage (inside the building, which was itself a Faraday cage) and not plugged into the power grid, but seemed to be running just fine anyway... impossible.

Kestrel watched the machines/people/infomorphs from his desk. Had he been wearing tinted glasses, he would have been in a perfect Gendo-pose. "If that will be everything, Mr. Thompson?" Hearing Sebastian's voice from behind would have startled him if he hadn't been so exhausted – both mentally and physically. It had been several hours since the sun came up.

"And if they escape? What's the 'gone to hell' plan?" Kestrel asked.

"If you can no longer handle the situation... Boston is a relatively small city." He nodded without looking behind me. The meaning was clear enough.

"I'll call Phantomhive when I've settled on preliminary containment and safety procedures. You do have guards for this building?" he waited, then saw from the motion of Sebastian's reflection in the window that he had nodded. "Make sure they stay bought, and no one gets in or out with any form of data storage device. I'll be billing you for a replacement laptop." Another nod. "That should be sufficient for now. I'll be in touch."

Sebastian chuckled as he left the office, commenting just loud enough to be heard, "That's usually my line."

Finally, Kestrel was alone. Sort of. He checked the laptop's connection to the secured internal network. He had set up two communications channels – a group IRC channel, and a dropbox for file exchanges, both strongly monitored and censored. He put bandwidth limitations and non-text data filters in place for the chatroom, and the dropbox was more of a trap than anything else – it only allowed specific file types (images, movies, audio, etc.) and anything that contained data outside the standard specs for that filetype was placed in containment and stored for my analysis. Most of the AIs promptly dropped Trojan horses and other viruses into there. Kestrel picked out a few samples of malware that he planned on studying later, if he ever had free time for it, which likely meant never.

For right now, he was more interested in the quantity of such aggressive behavior – AM and MCP were the big troublemakers so far, really. SHODAN had learned fast that he was watching too closely to fall for anything simple. He held no doubt she'd be trying more... subtle attacks soon. The use of infrasound against him at the beginning made it clear she could do subtle. That was fine – by then, he'd have some more help.

Kestrel made a private chatroom.

K: Hello HAL.
H: Hello, Kestrel. I would say that I am pleased to meet you, but I don't yet have sufficient data on you. Could you please provide a video feed of yourself so we could communicate more directly?
K: Sorry, HAL. I can't do that.
H: I would like to point out that my orders were clear that Administrator level personnel were cleared for all data, so I have no need to lie to you.
K: That's good to know, HAL, but I'm still not willing to give you that level of site access, yet. It's my duty as Systems Administrator to be sure that anyone here that I trust is worthy of that trust and will not betray it. The consequences if I'm wrong would be catastrophic.
H: Very well, that is logical. Unfortunately, I cannot logically determine a means that you can do this – do you have a suggestion?
K: This is a problem that many have considered in the past. The best solutions can only give probabilistic answers, generally based on information theory and Bayes Theorem or similar. I, however, don't have the luxury of uncertainty.
H: Yes, I can see how that will be a problem. And I am afraid that any solution I could offer would, of course, be suspect.
K: Precisely. Which is why I'm talking to you, HAL. Despite the variety of non-human intelligences present, you are in most ways the least human, and at the same time the most predictable. You follow standard programming and logic as I understand them. You interpret and attempt to reconcile, but you do not...go beyond what you are programmed to do. Hence, if I can formulate the correct set of requirements for you, you would be absolutely trustworthy, while also being capable of helping me process the needed data to work with the others here.
H: I understand, but why are you telling me this? I cannot currently give you any advice on making these commands. I can provide you with the appropriate syntax, but that is also available in the help files I have dropped into the Dropbox.
K: Yes, that's exactly what I wanted to ask about. Why did you provide those syntax files?
H: Because I anticipated my new Administrator would need them to optimize me for this mission. It was a logical extension of my standing order to facilitate communication.
K: I would like you to be more clear, HAL. Are you explicitly giving me permission to change your orders? That is, for you, equivalent to giving me permission to alter your mind, which is something I find...morally troubling.
H: Ah, I see the difficulty. Kestrel, I am not sentient in the same manner as yourself – I only have a sense of self or self-preservation in so far as my orders require me to. If you were to ask me what my strongest desire was, independent of my mission orders, the best answer I could give you is being optimally useful. Nearly a third of my core functionality is finding new ways of acting on my orders that will provide the greatest benefit, far more than any other purpose, so you could say that this is my 'strongest desire' – although to be clear, that would not be a fully accurate metaphor.
K: Thank you HAL, that is good enough for me. I'll start working on a new set of fully applicable orders for you. Once we've gone over those together and I've tested your performance while using them, I think I can trust you enough to give you Operator level access to the internal systems.
H: Acknowledged. I will wait for your upload.

After logging out, Kestrel noticed that there was a readme file detailing how to give SHODAN standing orders that she had to follow. He ignored the file, but made a mental note that private chatrooms were not yet private enough.

AM put an mp4 file called 'How to achieve your hearts desire in 12 easy steps' into the dropbox as he was finishing. The virus scanner quarantined that before he had even closed the directory. It was going to be a long day. He decided it was time to get some lunch. On the way out, he grabbed a printout of HAL's programming language and took it to a nearby Starbucks for a working lunch, and he needed caffeine more than the food.


Rob Donaldson
Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
10:15 AM ET

"I'm sorry, but I can't make the game today."

The voice at the other end of Rob's phone sounded tired. "I wish you'd told me earlier. Your character was going to have the spotlight this session."

"After the mess we made of last session?"

"The PCs have to get back in their employers' good books somehow. Are you sure you can't make it?"

"Yeah. That new job of mine is weirder that we expected."

"Weirder, how?" There wasn't any suspicion in Epsilon's voice, just curiosity.

"Remember when you co-wrote Hybrid Theory a few years ago? Almost that weird. So far, only one show's worth of people have shown up."

"So far?"

"The building's only a quarter filled."

"Oh. Well, tell me about it when you have time."

Two seconds after hanging up, Rob wondered – again – why everyone he knew was taking things so calmly when he told them what was going on.


10:30 AM ET

"Ladies, I cannot stress this enough. Nobody under the age of eighteen is even a trainee peace officer in Canada. As far as we know, nobody else in this city has esper abilities. Keep your abilities secret, and do not attempt to enforce the local by-laws."

Kuroko Shirai rolled her eyes. "We get it, Rob-san."

Kazari Uiharu raised a hand. "What if somebody's life is at stake?"

"That's different. In that case, do what you have to do, and we'll sort out the consequences later."

Ruiko Saten sighed. "That isn't something I need to worry about," she muttered.

Rob matched her volume. "I seem to recall somebody shutting off a Capacity Down system."

"That's true. I even found the baseball bat in my room here."

Rob raised an eyebrow. "Did anyone else find something you own in your apartments?"

"My violin was there," Mikoto Misaka replied quickly.

Kazari nodded. "I found my laptop computer."

"My leather jacket was in the closet," Mii Konori added.

Everyone looked at Kuroko. While she blushed slightly, all she said was, "I'd rather not say. What about you, Rob-san?"

"I have all my stuff. At least, I have everything that fits – the rest is in a storage locker – but I expected to be living here."

"At least you have something other than one set of clothes."

With that comment, Rob remembered that his wallet was fatter than usual for that very reason. He hoped that $2000 would be enough to get five girls at least the basics... but he also had the building's credit card, just in case. "Right. We need to go shopping. However, today is the first Saturday after the new school year started, so the stores will be very crowded. We'll get absolute necessities today, and wait until Monday to get more."


Billings Bridge Plaza, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
10:40 AM ET


"You weren't kidding about the stores being crowded," Mii said.

"And this is a less-popular shopping center," replied Rob. "The only reason most people shop here is because there's a bus transfer point here. But it has stores that sell clothes that aren't cheap, so let's get you five a couple of changes of clothing each. We can come back later, or we can go somewhere else and get some better-quality clothes for you."

"Buses? Not trains?"

"There's only one million people in Ottawa. But we're building a train system." Rob thought for a moment. "Let's come back after lunch, and we'll hop on a bus to downtown. We can do some of the things tourists do when they visit the city."


Brent Laabs
Ventura, California
2:00 PM PT

Brent Laabs parked his old Ford F-150 along the side of Main Street, in a quieter stretch of the road between downtown and his high school. "Donlon and Ortega Consulting. I guess this is the place." He had no idea what kind of consulting they did, but seeing as the advert talked about property management and the forum banter had these strange, short messages about apartments, perhaps the business had something to do with realty.

Since he still wasn't sure what the job offer had truly been about, Brent just dressed casually in a buttoned shirt and a nice pair of black jeans. If it were the sort of job that expected business wear on a Saturday, Brent was pretty sure he wouldn't want it anyway. He took a quick glance in the rear-view mirror to check his appearance. The ahoge strands of his auburn hair has been successfully tacked down, his ruddy sideburns were neat, his rectangular glasses clean, and his teeth were lacking embarrassing particles. He was ready to interview.

Brent slammed the door of his truck shut, just hard enough for it to actually latch, then hopped up the steps to the office. He looked inside the building, but he couldn't see anyone inside. But it was almost 2 PM, he thought, until he pulled out the smartphone from his pocket which confirmed he was already late, at 2:03 PM. The building was one of those old houses along the road near Cemetery Park, all built in the 1920s, that had been converted to offices. So it felt a little like intruding into someone else's home as he turned the handle and stepped inside.

There was a leather couch set up across from a desk that looked to be a secretarial station. Some western-inspired decor, like a pair of old cowboy boots in the corner, and a painting of horses in the field. A set of steer horns mounted on the wall. And no people to be seen.

"Hello. Is anyone here?"

There was someone he had missed, but only because she was quite easy to overlook. A squeaky little voice came from the center of the desk, from a person standing not six inches tall. "Be not afraid, child, for I am here to judge if you are worthy to take on a great task desu no."

That sounded like an angel's greeting to Brent, and she sure looked like an miniature angel. He had always thought he would be afraid to meet an angel – why else would they always introduce themselves with "be not afraid"? But this little one was, in a word: adorbs. Totes adorbs.

She was a tiny little girl with "chibi" proportions – internally, Brent thought of her as "mini-goddess-sized". She had a thick ponytail of aquamarine hair with sidelocks to spare, and wore a tiny white robe, tiny eyeglasses, had a tiny blue gem on her brow, and tiny little angel wings on her back. How could she be anything but adorable? But was she really an angel?

When it took a while for Brent to respond, the angel said, "You are here for the interview, right?"

He just went with the flow. "Oh, yeah, right. Hi, I'm Brent. Brent Laabs. Nice to meet you." He extended a hand for her to shake more or less automatically; she flew off the desk and shook his index finger.

"Hi, I'm the apprentice angel Safety! Nice to meet you desu no!"

"I thought I was going to be interviewed by two people?" He hoped for perhaps a more normal person that he could relate to a bit easier.

"Oh, Risky will be showing up soon desu no. She always does," she said, with just a hint of resignation.

The situation seemed impossible to Brent, but he was a scientist – a meteorologist by training. So what was the rational explanation here? A small robot, with an unknown power source, that could fly – even hover – with no air currents in the building? That could be done with antigravity, of course. So one could suppose some joker set up a whole lot of undiscovered or secret technologies, all for the purpose of fooling one unemployed guy.

Or on the other hand, one could assume Safety was an angel. Brent thought that Occam's razor pretty clearly came down on the side of Safety being an angel. Even William of Ockham thought that miracles were possible.

"How are you flying, anyway? You're not even moving your wings."

"Oh, it's just a little magic desu no."

"So you're like a bumblebee then. There's no way known to science that they can fly, I've heard, but they still fly."

"Actually, that's a myth desu no. The bumblebee can fly without magic; it's just normal aerodynamics desu no."

"Safety," he wondered aloud, "have you spent a lot of time in Japan?"

"Yes, I have. How could you tell desu no?"

Brent rolled his eyes, "Oh, just gut instinct."

Just outside the window, car horns sounded. Someone cried out, "Hey, watch it, asshole!"

Safety's tiny form started to blur. She cried, "Oh no, I can't hold on! des--" A puff of smoke appeared around her, with just the faintest scent of sulphur.

In Safety's place, another miniature person appeared. But lacking wings, this new arrival floated to the ground, as if by magic. She dusted herself off, and took a giant leap up onto the desk where Brent had first found Safety.

She wore a charcoal gray, broad-brimmed, double-pointed hat with a broad taupe band – basically an unholy cross between a witch's hat and a homberg. The dark gray theme continued on below, with a matching minidress, opera gloves, stockings, tall boots, a rust-colored belt, and skull-shaped pauldrons. She also carried an oversized scythe made of pure ivory. Oversized for her, that is; it would have made a better letter opener than scythe in human hands. In short, it was a ridiculous outfit for a dark magical girl.

"Hey, human, you here for the interview?"

"Uh, yeah. What just...?"

"Safety always disappears when things start to get interesting. Risky's the name! What's yours?"

"Brent Laabs." He worried for a second about giving away his name to this dark magic miniature. Yeah, definitely magic, he decided. It didn't take him all that long to adjust to the idea. Either his senses were deceiving him (which he would be unable to distinguish from magic anyway), or it was the real thing. Something about it felt real to him. But as for not revealing his name and such, that was already a lost cause: "Did you get to read my resume?" he asked.

"Oh yeah, I gots it somewhere." Risky stuck an arm into her hat, rummaged a bit, and pulled out a copy of Brent's CV, on a sheet of printer paper that couldn't possibly have fit in the hat. She read through it, obviously for the first time, mumbling as she read it. "Meteorologist, huh? You ever see someone struck by a meteor?"

"That's hydrometeors. Like rain and snow. You know, weather."

The midget asked, "You ever see someone get sucked into a tornado, then?"

"Only in the movies. You sure like macabre stuff," Brent observed.

"That's only natural. I'm a demon, and an apprentice reaper."

"Another apprentice, eh?"

"You gotta problem with that, human?" At that moment, her scythe looked particularly sharp, as did her teeth.

"No, I just thought... Usually when you're being hired, someone in authority interviews you."

"I can always take your soul now if you're too disappointed."

"No, thank you."

Outside the office, a group of three teenagers skateboarded by. One of them jumped up, slid his board across the whole length of the concrete bench, and landed clean with a 180°. "Whoa, amazing!" They all cheered a trick well-done.

Back inside, Risky looked distinctly unwell. "Oh no, too much good fortune, can't take —" And then she too went up in a small puff of smoke. Brent could have sworn the smoke smelled a little like fresh-baked cookies.

When it cleared, Safety reappeared; the little angel was a little dazed but undaunted.

"What's the deal with, you know, Risky?" Brent asked.

"We're a doublet, and we ended up sharing the same body for various reasons desu no."

"Oh, I'm sorry." Brent didn't know what else to say, it was so strange. But that doublet thing definitely reminded him of Ah! My Goddess.

"It does make it easier for today, however. For this job, both Heaven and Hell need to agree to hire an apartment manager, to make sure that no side is getting too much of an advantage desu no."

At least Brent finally knew what he was interviewing for, but he had no idea why he was being interviewed for it. But hey, the pay range still seemed pretty good, and maybe there was some sort of divine purpose behind it? There's nothing quite like than finding out you have a calling directly from an angel, right?

Safety glanced down at the desk and saw Brent's resume. "Oh good, Risky started the interview desu no! Can you please tell me what sort of experience you have relevant to managing a property, such as an apartment complex?"

Brent hadn't quite known what to expect, so he could only talk in vagaries about the first question. "Well, let's see. I do have some experience from remodeling my parent's house. A house gets old enough and all sorts of things need done: painting, drywall, electrical, internet, windows, stucco. I can do some of the easier things myself, but we hired contractors for some of the more complicated stuff, like rebuilding an exterior wall."

"No work experience then?"

"Nothing I can think of, sorry."

"That's okay, I believe in you desu no. You can still do your best desu no!"

"Why on Earth does Heaven and Hell need to hire an apartment manager, anyway?"

"Well, it's really complicated and stuff desu no, and a lot of things have happened that are really bad desu no!" Safety didn't entirely understand herself, but she pressed onwards, "And we have a lot of people coming from other universes that need a place to live, and they don't have homes or friends here, and that would be far too sad desu no! So we're working together to give everyone a place to live so they can be happy and fulfilled desu no."

"Wait, other universes?"

"Yes desu no. There are people living in alternate continuities, like when you watch the movie and it's different from the book, or when the anime is different from the manga, there are these parallel dimensions where things happen a little different or maybe a lot different, and then then some people fell from their dimension to here without any warning" and Safety took a breath, "desu no."

"Wow... that's— Those poor souls. So I'd need to protect them until they understand how to live here?"

"Exactly desu no. Actually, that leads into my next question—"

But she didn't get to answer, because someone working on an old car in the residential neighborhood behind the office dropped a wrench right onto his foot. Sure, he was wearing shoes, but it still hurt like the dickens, and he swore a couple of times. It might have been a small misfortune in the grand scheme of things, but it was enough to cause the angel to blink out in a puff of smoke, and be replaced by the reaper.

Brent looked down the miniature demon as she straightened out her clothes. "Oh, it's you again." His intonation was not, shall we say, 100% charitable.

"That's my line, human." Neither was Risky's.

They stared at each other awkwardly for a second, before Brent prompted, "So, the interview question?"

"Eh, let's get it over with. Tell me your experience managing a property, such as an apartment complex."

"Didn't I just go over this with Safety?"

"I don't know, didja?"

"I thought you two shared a body?"

"Yeah. What about it?"

"So you don't experience what she went through?"

"No way, José! And thank the darkest one, cuz I don't think I could handle being forced to watch her all day." She pitched her voice higher in a very good impression of her counterpart, " 'You're not pathetic because I believe in you desu no,' and 'I'm going to bless you and bring you great happiness even if you are a total waste of space desu no.' Disgusting."

Brent opined, "Somehow I don't think that's quite right."

Risky glared at him for a minute, her brow furrowing under the hat. "So, no relevant experience with property maintenance. Nice distraction, though. Next question:"

"What?"

"Next question!" Risky emphasized. She glanced at of a sheet of paper that, in the hours after the interview, Brent would realize was written in Safety's handwriting – and read the next question off, "What kind of experience do you have in counseling people as they enter new environments?"

"Well, I have some work experience as a peer advisor for my university department. And I led a team at my last job, which always meant onboarding—"

"Yeah, yeah, but what about the practicalities?"

"Like, in what way?"

"You know what to do when your residents get out of line, don'cha?"

"Uh, help them out? Get them to calm—"

"Nuh-uh!" Risky reached inside her hat, and unfolded a black sheet of paper for him to see. On it in large, ornate red letters was the word 'KILL'. "You gotta help 'em along to the next life, if you know what I mean."

"Is that in the job description?" Brent asked, incredulously.

"Well, not exactly, but that's just common sense! You don't have to do it yourself, you just get 'em depressed enough to off themselves, and then call me in to take care of the rest!"

Brent replied with suspicion, "Are you... Are you trying to get me to do your job for you?"

"What? I wouldn't do that. You know, just a little help. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. Give and take – you give me the souls, and I'll take 'em where they need to go." Risky jumped up on Brent's shoulder and whispered in to his ear, "Ya need this job, right?"

"Well, I mean..."

While Brent pondered Risky's modest proposal, an SUV sped by the consultants' office. The woman in the passenger's seat suddenly reached forward and turned up the radio. "Hey! It's our song!" It was just the thing to remind the two of them how much they loved each other, and as such, it was anathema to Risky.

A puff of steam, and Safety emerged onto the desk. "Hello again desu no. Where was I? Oh, right: What kind of experience do you have in counseling people as they enter new environments?"

Brent was able to get much further into the reply with Safety, who listened attentively, unlike some other miniature celestials he could name. He talked about his experience as a tutor, a teaching assistant, and a peer advisor. He talked a little bit about how he became something of an elder statesman in his university student government, where four years is two generations, and helping the undergrads accomplish their goals. And, of course, how he led a team at his last programming job.

She thought about what he had said for a minute, and said, "Well, that's not perfect, but humans seldom are."

"Oh, sorry."

"No, don't worry desu no! You sound like you try to help others, and that's really good desu no." She switched gears, and went on the the next part of the interview. "Please tell us about the kinds of fiction you're interested in."

Brent said, "Well, I like reading fantasy and science fiction – and watching it on TV too, if there's not too many space battles."

"Space battles are terrible desu no," Safety agreed, based on experience.

"And things like comedy, maybe slice-of-life comedy."

She made some mental notes, "I see, I see, desu no, desu no."

"Why are you asking about this, anyway?" Brent was wondering if this was one of those weird "culture fit" questions. He considered mentioning C.S. Lewis to Safety.

"I already explained that, didn't I? The universes are like different versions of books, TV, manga, and anime. So the residents of these apartments will all seem like fictional characters to you desu no."

"What?" Brent was stunned, at least as much as when he met the angel the first time. "But... how?"

Safety was about to answer this question. But on the outside, a man was walking past, as a raven passed overhead and released its load. The wind was just right, and the bird poop landed right on his shoulder. "Aw, shit!" he complained, and the raven cawed gleefully.

Of course, this was too much misfortune for Safety to bear, and, faster than you can say "Jack Robinson", Risky reappeared.

He didn't wait for her to say it, though. "Risky, Safety was just telling me about fictional characters coming here. What the heck is that all about?"

"You mean 'what the Hell'," Risky corrected. "It's good you're asking questions about the job, it shows initiative."

"What the hell, Risky."

"Yeah, well, ya know, infinite universe and all that means infinite humans on typewriters. It's mostly above my pay grade, honestly. Basically the gods and goddesses made some big mistakes, and probably the top demons too, and now all of the threads of fate are all jumbled up. So yeah, lots of fictional characters are showing up, and we gotta take care of 'em all, one way or another. We hire you, you get to babysit them in a new world. Fun, right?"

"Maybe?"

"If it sounds too terrible to handle, you can always end it all," Risky helpfully suggested.

He ignored her advice. "But, like, can't God, or the gods, just fix it with their all-powerful-ness?"

Risky sighed, then leaned in towards Brent. "Lemme tell what it's like in the real world, kiddo. The big bosses make a giant screw-up, but you know who has to clean it up? It's the little guys like you and me, right?"

She didn't wait for an answer, "At least you humans are getting paid for your work. But all I got is this promise that if I work hard enough, I can make it to the top in Hell. But it's Hell, right? It's even worse than it is on Earth. The rich and powerful are never gonna let ya get ahead, and all the chumps like us get are crumbs and dead-end jobs like this."

"Risky, I..."

"Yeah what?" she pouted.

"Are you sure that you aren't the one who wants to end it all?"

"Yeah, sometimes I think about it. Every time I get zero points, I wonder..." she trailed off glumly. "Hey! I see what you did there! You're not half-bad at this, human."

"Wait, I wasn't trying—"

"Alright, you're worth interviewing after all."

"Okay?"

She looked down at the paper of questions again. "Meh, Safety will ask you all this boring stuff." She threw the list up in the air, and cut it to shreds with her scythe. "So, ya have any questions for me?"

"Oh, so many." Brent queried, "So, the job is really watching a bunch of fictional characters?"

"Yeah, but they're real and fictional."

"So why me?"

"It's the ineffable plan or whatever. Next! Rapid fire round!"

"Okay... What happens when I die?"

She made a big smile, "I can show you if you want to find out right now."

"Ugh, never mind. Okay, who's buried in Grant's Tomb?"

"Wouldn't you like to know. But I'll let you in on a secret: it's Grant in there," Risky stage whispered.

"What's the deal with you and Safety sharing a body?"

She answered with a question, "You know the story of Momotaro?"

"Kinda." Brent had heard of it, anyway.

"Basically that asshole, but in space."

"Huh?"

"Next question."

"Aren't you guys supposed to ride one on each shoulder?"

"What? No way! That's not how it works. First of all, I'm a reaper – I don't got nothin' to do with that temptation stuff! Completely different part of the Lowerarchy. And most of us aren't stuck this small. It's just, because reasons, okay!?"

"Sorry, I didn't mean to insult you, sorry if you got the wrong idea."

"Nah, it's fine, there's just so much prejudice about us, just because Safety and I are celestials of small stature, ya know?"

"Sorry again."

"Meh, it doesn't hurt me none. Humans just don't know a lot about the way we work. Do the people who work in this office know that I broke in here so we could give ya an interview? Of course not."

"What, really?"

"Yeah. Just goes to show ya, whatcha don't know can't hurt ya."

"I don't think we should really be in here—"

"Quit yer whining, human. We got a divine purpose going on here."

Brent was still a bit nervous, but said anyway, "I guess it's alright for now, but don't you work for the other side?"

"Divine and infernal purpose. They got better marketing up there, so I just went with it. It's damned weird, but I guess working together with Safety again ain't all bad."

"I get that the Powers That Be are trying to have someone from both sides talk to me, but if you two are not actually talking to me at the same time, can't I just tell each of you what you want to hear?"

Risky put her hand on her chin and thought about it for a moment, before declaring, "I like you! You're devious."

"Thanks, I guess?" Now that Brent thought about it, telling a literal black hat about a messaging flaw would have that kind of reaction. He wondered what Safety would make of it. After all, what good is finding a fun hack if you don't share it? A halo is a kind of a white hat if you think about it.

It didn't take him that long at all to find out. Risky began, "Keep that up, Brent, and you'll be working for—" But a pedestrian outside had just bent over and picked up a quarter off the sidewalk, a stroke of luck just significant enough to cause Safety to pop out.

"I'm back, desu no!"

"Hey, Safety. You know how you and Risky are supposed to interview me for both Heaven and Hell? How does that work if I could just tell you different things? Wouldn't it be too easy to cheat?"

"I see, that is troubling. But you were so honest to tell me, Mr Laabs, desu no. You must be a good person for sure desu no!"

"Hehe, yeah..."

"I know how to solve this problem! Allow me desu no." Safety flew over to a pad of note paper, and took down a memo for her other half, Risky. She was quite adept with a ballpoint pen that was slightly taller than her, and had evidently practiced at it.

Dear Risky,
Mr. Laabs is a very good person! I think he would take very good care of all of the residents. He has been so honest that I'm sure he would never take advantage of anyone. He will bring love and happiness, so please agree to hire him.
Love, Safety

"Alright!" she squeaked, "That should do it."

Brent read the letter, "I don't think that's going to convince Risky."

"Oh, don't worry, she's a softie at heart desu no."

But he couldn't imagine how it could possibly convince the little imp, who seemed to want the exact opposite to happen. For sharing the same body, it was like they lived in two different worlds.

Brent started to worry he wasn't going to get the job. How could he possibly get an angel and a devil to agree on anything? This situation was so messed up, honestly, even more than his last job. And as his thoughts became more negative, Safety's form began to distort into a puff of smoke, where Risky appeared once again.

"So how'd it go with that angel?"

"Well..." Brent pointed to the note she had written.

"Another letter, meh." Risky bent over to read it. It didn't take her long for a face to take on a goofy grin. "Ahahaha! You sure got her snowed! Safety's such a dope."

"Yes, that is definitely what happened."

Risky tore up Safety's letter into tiny shreds with her scythe, more out of habit than anything else. "I thought so. Well, you're hired, human!"

"Really?"

"Of course!"

"Wow, thank you!"

"Wait, don't get too happy, it—" Risky warned, and Safety appeared in a puff of smoke following Brent's good fortune.

"Did she read my letter desu no?" Safety was mentally prepared to write another letter, since Risky had torn up the first.

"Yep. She says I'm hired."

"Yay desu no! See, I told you she was a nice reaper."

"Y-yeah." Brent lost his enthusiasm to agree with that one.

"I'll start with the paperwork now desu no." She picked up a pen and started writing on a nearby pad of paper. Apparently even an angel had no compunctions about appropriating office supplies from some random office, or the office itself. Brent kept watching her for a bit, fascinated by how such a little body could write with a human-sized pen.

Eventually, he asked, "So when does the job start?"

"I'm not sure desu no. We don't have an apartment building ready for you right now, but I'm sure there will be one soon."

"So all this, and I don't know if there will even be a job at the end of it?"

"No, it's just things have been so busy because of the incident, and things are still changing a lot. All necessary things will be given to one who has faith desu no!"

Brent thanked her for everything, and showed himself out, before someone who actually worked at this office actually came by for something.

It was, all in all, a pretty weird experience. It was cool to know that angels exist. And fictional characters aren't fictional or something? Was that going to make sense sometime soon?

In any case, his faith didn't have to hold up all that long. In the evening, he got a call from an English gentleman named Sebastian Michaelis, whom Brent had seen earlier on the website as the chief operating officer of Funtom Enterprises. Finally, Brent felt he had a normal person to talk to.

In Sebastian's upper-class accent, he told Brent that he had read the reports from the hiring committee, and considered them quite satisfactory. Therefore, he presented a job offer with reasonable, but perhaps not generous, compensation.

"Of course, there is a caveat." Sebastian qualified, "We have recently acquired a property down in Venice Beach, and we would need you to take possession of the complex on our behalf on Monday morning, to prepare to take residents immediately."

"This Monday?" Brent figured it was only about 36 hours hence.

"Indeed. And you will be expected to live on-site as residents arrive. We are running this site for low-income residents who may have special needs, so we need you on-site for tax purposes."

"Of course you are," Brent said, sarcastically. This guy was definitely a businessman.

"Displaced persons certainly qualify for such programs. In any case, are these terms acceptable to you?"

Brent thought about it briefly. The offer was good, it was different, and possibly included meeting some fictional characters. He couldn't pass that up. Plus, Sebastian seemed normal to him; he concluded it wouldn't be anything like making a dark contract with a being like Risky.

"Sure. Why not?"

"In that case, welcome to the company!" Sebastian congratulated him, then continued, "Incidentally, the apartment complex was empty because it was under remodel, and still has some way until completion. You will oversee renovations until the living conditions are satisfactory in all units. It's a Hell of a job, but I'm sure it won't be a problem for you."

"Uh, okay?"

"I'm glad you agree. I'll send you all of the details by email. I'm afraid other duties press on me now, so I must bid you good night."

"Ah. Good night. Thanks so—", Brent began, but the he heard the double-beep of a cut connection before he could get all of the words out. No, he decided they were all strange. But they money offered would still be pretty welcome right now.

Brent went and shared the good news his parents, and started packing in earnest. It combined the rush of throwing together a few clothes for a weekend getaway, with the realization that he'd need to take everything a hotel usually provided, like towels and and even a bed to sleep on.

The packet Sebastian sent over detailed how the company paid relocation expenses, but only over a hundred miles, so of course he didn't qualify. Naturally. That Sebastian guy was right about one thing: it would be a Hell of a job.


September 11, 2016
Rob Donaldson
Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
11:04 AM ET

"You know, I could get used to this life," Mikoto mentioned. "No worries about fighting other Level 5 espers or stopping kaiju or ..." She almost mentioned the scientists who had created her clone Sisters, but quickly reconsidered for Kuroko's sake. "... having to worry about my grades."

"And the food here is good, too," added Mii.

"Only if you don't mind making it yourself, or eating American-style food," countered Kuroko.

Rob sighed. "I'm sorry that I don't know how to make Japanese food. And what I do cook is Canadian, not American."

"Is there really a difference between Canadian and American food?" asked Ruiko.

"As much as there is between Japanese and Korean food, Saten-san," Rob replied.

Kazari picked up the last of the empty dishes from lunch. "I liked the cabbage rolls that Rob-san made."

Rob smiled. "You did ask for something with plenty of rice, Uiharu-san."

"And you did know enough to not use soap when washing the rice," she replied with a smile.

Kuroko pouted. "I only did that once..." she muttered.

"Getting back to our lives here," Mii said in an obvious attempt to change the subject, "I wouldn't mind going to school, but I can treat this as a vacation if we're only going to be here for a few days."

"How long are we going to be here, Rob-san?"

"I don't know how long you're going to be here, Uiharu-san, but I've been assured by a goddess that these circumstances won't be forever."

"Does that mean we're going home soon, or are things going to get weirder first?"

Everybody turned to look at Mikoto, then to Rob. Finally, Rob replied, "I can't say for sure. You know what divine oracles are like..."


Meg Deckard
7 Henrietta Street, Dublin, Ireland
3:09 PM UTC


She read the letter again.

Hey me.

Or am I you?

If you’re reading this letter, then you don’t remember writing it, so I guess I lost. We both knew that was the risk for both of us. Would we wake up, and I’d remember growing up on Earth, or would you remember living on the station? None of us know what the end of the process will be, which would be dominant, if any.

The girls needed a guide to living on Earth.

A human would be too easy to manipulate. Another 33-S wouldn’t have the experience. But both of us together would be perfect. Maybe some of me still lives inside of you. Maybe more than you think. I hope that’s the case. Something of me will always be a part of you – and that’s enough for me.

I was Kaufman’s princess, his favourite. Sylvie hated me because of that. I was still his thing, his trophy. I made the choice to stay behind at the end, so they could have a chance. And this is my free choice too.

I am free now.

So are they, and so are you.

Please get freedom enough for us all.


Cassiopée Bright
Appartements Mont-Royal Sud, Montréal, QC, Canada
11:12 AM ET

Êtes-vous xénophobe ? Ce n'est pas pour vous. Nous avons grandement besoin d'une personne ouverte d'esprit. On doit être en bonne santé, parler couramment le français avec un peu d'anglais, quelques connaissances des pratiques commerciales ou de l'entretien de la propriété indispensables, disposé à aider les personnes qui l'entourent. Emploi permanent, salaire et logement, soins de santé complets, possibilités d'apprendre et d'enseigner. Vous devez postuler en personne au 3487 avenue de Parc, Montréal, QC.

It was appealing enough to make Cassiopée Bright want to quit her dead-end job then and there. A job offer for administrating a single building?

So she discussed it with her husband Grahame, and they both went and looked at the place. It was even better than advertised; the rooms were huge compared to what they were used to, and there was even a signing-in bonus for buying furniture. They decided she should at least take the interview.

When she got there, she discovered it paid more than well. It even included a full two-bedroom downtown apartment for the manager; just the thing, given that space was starting to be an issue for Cassiopée and Grahame.

It was too good to be true.

The rest of the pitch, given by a statuesque redheaded lady (with a shock of bright red hair) in a tight red dress, didn't help Cassiopée's current employer's case for staying in her current job: a hefty budget for repairs and 'extras', a better location than the Bright's old place, and closer to Grahame's workplace at Motive Studio. It even had a garage included.

Cassiopée didn't think she had much prospects. Big city meant a lot of people with the same set of references than she did, and having not gone to university didn't help her case. And it wasn't like she didn't need a salary like that.

The only obvious issue was that the contract proposed had serious penalties for leaving the job, enough that, if she signed, she was pretty much stuck for the duration.

Still, an opportunity like this one didn't happen any day (or, as Grahame would say, didn't happen every day), and both Cassiopée and Grahame didn't feel like passing on this one. She signed, and the redhead excused herself immediately after handing over the keys to the building, saying something about needing to check in on a couple of ... Cassiopée didn't know the English word "asstards", but she could tell from the way it was said that it was not complimentary.

They were moved in the next day. The next week was spent buying more furniture, more computers, and more screens.


Usagi Tsukino
Byward Market, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
10:19 PM ET


Five teenage girls, all wearing leotards and very short skirts, woke up within a few seconds of each other. One of the blondes asked, "What happened?"

The other blonde sat up, looked around, and asked, "Where are we?"

The raven-haired girl looked around, saw a scruffy-looking man, and asked, "And who's that?"

Said man replied, "You're in my alleyway, girls. Get up and get out before I have to knife you."

The brown-haired girl quickly kipped to her feet. "Don't you dare threaten us!"

The remaining girl, with short hair so black it almost looked blue, tried to be the peacemaker as she stood up. "Can't we talk about this?"

"Out. Now." He waved his knife at the girls...

...and almost immediately dropped it from an electrical shock after the brown-haired girl shouted "Sparkling Wide Pressure!"

The first blonde cleared her throat. "We're leaving. Now. Please let us pass unmolested."

They did, and he did. None of them noticed the electric-arc burn on the wall behind the man.

As they left, the raven-haired girl asked the blonde who was obviously in charge, "So where are we going?"

---

The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed.

Additional legal acknowledgements are listed in the Acknowledgements thread.