After a short walk back through the garden, Fyn made his way into the house and headed for the kitchen. He had been given a tour the previous day and remembered where to go with little effort.

Soon, he was outside again, sitting on a bench with a steaming mug of soup in one hand and a soft bread roll in the other. The smell of the soup was overpowering, so thick he could almost taste it, and the bread roll felt a sponge rather than the chalky texture any bread he'd tried before had. There wasn't even any mould to pick off.

Behind him, the morning sun cast shadows against the house's alabaster walls. And, if Fyn had been paying enough attention, he would have noticed that one of the shadows was slightly darker than it should have been. It twitched a little each time he moved as though nervous.

Oblivious to this, Fyn sighed, staring out at the garden again as the day began. The two men in overalls were trimming hedges in the distance, and the sharp click of the secateurs echoed along the lawn. He could hear the distant clatter of something metal and the faint rumble of the earth moving. Once in a while, he would sense a small tremor run through the ground as though something huge had just fallen from a great height.

Peaceful. That was the best word for it. He felt at ease here.

Back home, someone was always yelling in the apartment above or screaming in the streets below. He had long ago learned to drown out those noises, but sitting in such tranquillity made him realise how tightly wound he had been. It was a wonder he hadn't snapped like a taught elastic band already.

He still felt on edge, if he was being honest. From his point of view, it made little sense that he was even here in the first place. Powers be damned. The previous day, Karst had explained what he needed from Fyn, laid it out clear and simple, but a little part of him just couldn't believe it.

Fyn was... well... Fyn. How was he supposed to join Valince Academy? How was he supposed to protect anyone?

Fyn kept expecting men in black tactical gear to show up and impale him on a solid shadow. Or maybe the priest would sacrifice him to the lighthouse for some bonus religion points or whatever they got for offerings like that.

Fyn tore off a piece of the bread and dipped it in the soup, taking a bite. The morsel had barely hit his tongue before he had another piece of bread in the soup. It tasted like ambrosia, warmth flooding his body in a tidal wave.

Seconds later, the soup was gone.

With nothing better to do, Fyn got up and went back to the kitchen, leaving his mug with one of the attendants. The young man had slick brown hair and a suit that didn't fit quite right. He looked new here.

"Do you have the time, mate?" Fyn asked.

The attendant disappeared into the kitchen and returned a moment later. "Half eight, sir."

"Sir…" Fyn echoed. He had never been called sir by anyone before. Usually, it was just, 'Oi, you' or 'Mate'. Sir was a new one.

"Yes, sir," the attendant continued. "If you are waiting for his holiness, I believe he will be down for his morning meal in fifteen minutes. He never sees guests until after he's eaten."

Fyn nodded absentmindedly and turned. He felt very small in this house. It was like the walls were too far apart to offer any protection, and the ceiling was too high to matter. The whole place made him feel whatever the opposite of claustrophobic was, maybe like a little dingy lost at sea.

He wound up wandering through the halls in search of nothing in particular, walking was his head down and his hands in his pockets.

Behind him, a little shadow flitted across the walls like an anxious bird. Not that Fyn noticed.

He was so absorbed with his own thoughts, in fact, that Fyn didn't notice Karst until the big man grabbed his arm with a hand that could crush a bowling ball.

His head shot up, making eye contact with the giant's brown orbs. "What?" Fyn paused, thinking. "Is it time?"

Karst flashed him a blinding grin and hauled him to the edge of the corridor, where a door that hadn't been there yesterday hung open. "Come with me," he hissed, dragging Fyn down the dark passageway that shouldn't exist.

"I would still like to know how exactly you're planning on getting me into that school," Fyn said nervously. He was just talking to fill the silence that choked the narrow black corridor. "As far as I know, they only let kids in."

"Aye, you would be right," Karst rumbled from up ahead. "But that's not a problem for us, is it?"

Fyn frowned as Karst stepped out of the corridor and into the light. "How is that not a problem? Seems like a pretty fucking massive one to me."

Soon, he also left the corridor, stepping into a blindingly bright room. Fyn blinked the dark spots out of his vision as Karst strode over to the other side of the room.

"We're humanists, remember?" Karst replied slyly.

"Oh, really? I had forgotten," grumbled Fyn as his eyes adjusted to the light. "Still, I don't see what..."

He paused mid-sentence. Once his vision had returned and he had seen what the room contained, Fyn's words caught in his throat.

The place was big and very white. Plastic sheets covered everything, and sharp metal instruments that would make a royal torturer blush hung from the walls on sparkling metal hooks.

In the centre of the room, Karst was standing beside a gurney that was a little too clean. It was the sort of clean that meant it was cleaned regularly. Bleached, most likely.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Fyn shuddered, remembering a similar operating table back in the warehouse.

"What's this?" He asked nervously. A few ideas had occurred to him. None of them pleasant.

"This is where your mission begins," said Karst, sounding a little too excited for Fyn's liking. "Or did you already forget what we talked about yesterday?"

Fyn ground his jaw in frustration. "Of course, I fucking remember. But I didn’t know that… that, meant this…”

"Well, it does," Karst said plainly. "How else did you think you were getting into an academy for kids? I know you're short, but not that short."

Fyn was staring at the clean metal table with wide eyes. There were thick leather straps where his arms and legs would go. "And what about these?"

"Can't go messing with a person's body when they're moving about, now can we? What if you change the wrong thing, and now their fingers are toes, eh?"

"That can happen!?"

"Nah… well… yeah. But you'd have to really muck up to do something that bad." Karst didn't meet Fyn's eyes. "Worst that usually happens is someone's heart stopping or their brain haemorrhaging."

"Nothing too serious, then," Fyn said sarcastically.

"Aye." Karst's reply lacked that sarcasm. He seemed fairly confident that such things were not, in fact, too serious.

Fyn wrinkled his nose and eyed the cold metal table. "It's not you doing the procedure, is it?"

Karst scowled indignantly. "I'll have you know that I am one of the most accomplished humanists on this side of the equator!"

Fyn gave him a sidewards look and said, "Sure."

"I am!" Karst grumbled. "But, no, Kline is doing the procedure. He has experience with stuff like this."

Kline. The master of the house, his holiness, the height priest. The towering scarecrow of a man made Fyn nervous no matter what he did. There was something about his cold gaze that unnerved him, set his teeth chattering and skin crawling. He was too clinical, too precise.

"Do you really think it will work?" asked Fyn. "I mean… It's…"

"Bah! Stuff like this is child's play," Karst snorted. "I've done more complex procedures in my sleep, and I'm nowhere near as accomplished as Kline."

Fyn nodded - more for himself than anyone else - and stared down at the gurney glumly. "Okay…"

The previous day, Kline and Karst explained he would be joining one of the academies, Valince. All night, Fyn had racked his brain to figure out how that was possible, and now, he knew. The answer lay before him in the form of a cold metal table.

The gurney was staring back at him now. Inviting him.

"Do I need to be awake for this?" asked Fyn hopefully. He would rather not.

"Fraid so," said Karst. "We need you to actively shut down your automatic defences, or we can't do shit to your body. Lucky bastard."

Fyn groaned and put his head in his hands. "Fuckk…" he shook his head helplessly. "Alright, alright. Let's just get this over with."

He lay down on the gurney, a chill running up his back. Steel had never felt quite so cold. So hard. Karst tied straps around his arms and ankles, and a big one went around his neck. It was just tight enough that he could breathe without being able to move.

"Will this take long?" Fyn asked.

"No." The voice came from across the room. It was dry and terse, as though impatient to begin. Kline had the sort of voice that sounded annoyed to be speaking. "We will be done by lunch."

Fyn nodded to himself and took a shaky breath. "Okay, okay… um… well, just tell me what to do, and I'll do my best not to get in your way."

Kline's figure loomed over Fyn, his bald head towering above him like a satellite. "Thank you for your cooperation, Mr Handler. All I ask is that you not resist."

"O-Okay." Fyn tensed up as the big man's hand neared his forearm.

"You're resisting, Mr Handler."

"S-Sorry, Sorry, I… I just-"

"I don't care why you're doing it. Just stop."

Fyn nodded and tried his hardest to relax. Which was counterintuitive, if you think about it.

A big, skeletal hand closed around his forearm, and Fyn began to feel pressure. It felt like tiny needles were pushing against his skin and failing to break through. He focused on that sensation and tried to open the way for them, trying to let them in.

It took a few attempts, but eventually, the prickling sensation broke through his skin and spread through his arm like water along a dried-up riverbed. It branched out into the rest of his body until it felt like every part of him had pins and needles.

Fyn had never felt so naked. So exposed.

Eventually, Kline grunted and the pressure he exerted changed. If, at first, it had been exploratory, now it was invasive. Heat scorched through Fyn's arm, and everything it touched changed. His bones hardened, and his muscles condensed; even his head shrunk and morphed, taking on a less haggard and more youthful appearance.

His skin got softer and smoother, hair falling off his chest and legs like pine needles off a dying tree.

More than once, Karst had to redo the straps as Fyn continually shrunk.

Fyn couldn't say what he was feeling. It wasn't painful, per se, but it did feel uncomfortable. He could sense the changes being made and felt his understanding of his body weaken. After spending years as himself, he was morphing into someone else. It was an alien feeling. An isolating one.

Hours passed. Kline's face remained stony and placid. His grip never wavered, and his attention never slackened. It was like he was carved from stone.

What did change was Fyn.

When he had first lain back on the gurney, he had looked wiry and short, all sinew and nerves, like a tightly wound elastic band. He had been close to five foot five and had curly brown hair that stuck out like steel wool. His face was narrow and skittish, with sunken eyes and teeth that had never met a dentist.

But as time passed, he gradually shrunk, looking younger and younger. His eyes changed colour from grey to blue, and his face softened. However, unlike everything else, his hair remained much the same, only lightening a little.

Even as it was happening, Fyn felt like it was insane. The plan had been laid out before him plain and simple.

Protect the children that Kline asked him to protect, and gather intel on the Aegis. Both the humanists had fears that something big was coming, but neither had any way of getting access to that information.

He was to join these children at Valince Academy on one of the Forward Holds. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say, other children.

Yes. Other children. For Fyn was now one of them... in appearance, anyway.

The Forward Holds were massive planets that circled the centre of the Aegis, surrounding the largest and oldest Breach. They were the first line of defence and the only place where a child could get a star seed and become a sentinel. That was the official statement, anyway.

But we must come back to the fact that only children may attend the academies housed in Forward Holds.

Fyn was not a child anymore. Or at least, he hadn't been until Kline got his hands on him.

If you looked at him now, strapped to the gurney, you wouldn't think he was anything other than a child. Perhaps the only thing that would betray his age was his eyes.

They were a little too distant. Too dull. To belong to a child.

When initially informed of the plan, Fyn had wondered how he was supposed to get accepted into one of the academies with no birth certificate or records. But Kline had waved away his concerns with one especially long and slender hand. "The Church has more influence than you could ever imagine," he had said.

The funny thing is, after seeing the ridiculous mansion Kline lived in, Fyn was inclined to believe him.

Why else would he have lain on this gurney? Why else would he have trusted the man?

Honestly, Fyn didn't give a rat's ass about their plans. But if doing what Kline said meant that he could go and train at one of the Forward Holds… If it meant he could become a Sentinel… well… Fyn would ask how high if Kline told him to jump.

Besides, how difficult could it possibly be to protect some children?

Oblivious to Fyn's thoughts, a small shadow shuddered in the corner of the room. It had witnessed his bizarre change with morbid curiosity, unable to tear its eyes from him.

And all in the room were ignorant of its presence.

Who would notice a shadow, after all?