It took Fyn a few minutes and more handwringing than he would like to admit before he managed to calm the big man down.

But eventually, the hairy giant stopped freaking out long enough to tell Fyn his name. Karst.

Fyn's logic was straightforward. 'Why would these mysterious enemies be staking out the warehouse they already destroyed?'

When it became apparent they were in no immediate danger, Fyn wandered over to the sink and started cleaning his dirty pots and pans. The grime had been there so long it had almost fossilised into a greasy coral reef.

As Fyn cleaned, Karst rifled through his fridge as though he owned the place.

"So," said Fyn as he scrubbed at an old grease stain. "Where exactly do you fit into all of this?"

Karst rubbed his nose and grabbed some leftovers from the fridge, placing the Tupperware on the counter. "I'm a humanist, same as you. Although… I wasn't quite as advanced as Doctor Sill, so he did most of the experiments. I was just the muscle."

Fyn dropped the plate he had been cleaning into the sink. It landed with a clatter, sending suds flying, but he paid them no heed, too busy staring at Karst. From the way he was looking at the giant, you might have thought the big man had just told Fyn he was dead. "S-Sorry? did you just say-"

"Yeah, yeah, you're a humanist, mate. Same as me... or well... not quite the same, if Sill was successful."

Fyn swallowed hard, feeling a lump in his throat. "But, but, don't humanists need star seeds to awaken? How else could I become a sentinel!? I've never even had a sniff of a star seed."

Karst picked up a grotty tea towel and started to dry the things Fyn had abandoned. "Nah, humanists don't need seeds to awaken their abilities. I think that's why people are so scared of us. The church especially. They can't control us, and all that." He shook his head morosely. "But that's besides the point. What matters now is that you are one of us. How does it feel, ay? Hated by the whole Aegis. Thousands of planets. Trillions of people. Not one of em would trust you to tie their shoelaces."

Despite not really wanting to believe that Karst was telling the truth, Fyn did. It just made sense. How else would he have survived the fire in the collapsing warehouse?

As far as he was aware, regular humans didn't recover from things like that, nevermind at a visible pace. Besides, he vaguely remembered the doctor mentioning that he wanted to try the procedure on himself if it was successful.

"But I've never heard of a humanist with powers like mine," Fyn scrambled to find purchase on anything that might mean the big man was lying. "Don't you lot fiddle with other people's bodies, not your own?"

Karst scowled and nodded. "That's exactly why my buddy, Sill (may be rest in pieces) was doing all those experiments." He said this while chucking the tupperware in the microwave and hitting a few buttons. It began to rotate, bathing the dark kitchen in a soft orange glow.

"But why?" Fyn asked. From his perspective, it made little sense that humanists – people who could manipulate the human body – wouldn't be able to make changes to their own.

"Well…" Karst placed down a pan and scratched his head. "It boils down to the difficulty of the thing. In theory, we can alter our own bodies, and to an extent, we can make changes to certain aspects of them." He held out his hand and said, "Here, hit this, you'll see."

"… why?" asked Fyn.

"Just do it," snapped Karst.

Fyn squinted at the outstretched hand. It was covered in thick black hair and wiry muscles. "Okay…"

He picked up a frying pan and tapped the arm with it. Whatever sound Fyn had been expecting, it wasn't the one that ended up appearing. It sounded like his frying pan had smacked into a steel girder and not flesh. The impact was almost metallic.

"Wh- what the fuck?"

Karst grinned. "See, I can change my body in certain ways. Increase the strength of my muscles, the toughness of my skin, the density of my bones, etc, but… I can't do it quickly. To do this…" he gestured to his arm. "Took me weeks of concentrated effort. What Sill wanted was to make that process automatic, something that you don't even have to think about."

Fyn frowned, remembering how his body had adapted to the flames within minutes. And he hadn't even needed to do anything.

"But why does it take so long for normal humanists?"

"Look, there's a reason that even the best dentist goes to someone else to get their teeth checked, right? It's something like that; only, the difficulty of tinkering with the inside of a human body is ten times as hard. A stray nerve getting damaged, or a tendon stretched too far can end in tragedy, and when trying to alter the brain chemistry of your own brain with your own brain, you can imagine that the whole process gets pretty difficult."

"Why not just get another humanist to do it for you?" Fyn wondered.

"We do," said Karst. "Why do you think I hung out with that other guy? He wasn't exactly great company."

"Right…" Fyn abandoned the dishes and leant back against the fridge, holding a hand on his forehead. "So why am I different?"

Karst paused halfway through drying a dish, staring at him with a wicked grin. "That's what I'm itching to find out?"

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Huh?" Fyn started to get a bad feeling about the way the big man was looking at him.

"Sill promised to tell me how it was done after he figured it out, but now that he's dead..." Karst muttered this under his breath, counting things on his fingers. "Do you think I could take a look inside you to see what he did? Only for a second, mate?"

Fyn frowned. "Umm… no?" Suddenly the dull drone of the microwave felt sinister and oppressive.

"C'mon?" Karst set down the plate and moved towards Fyn. "I won't break anything. Nothing that can't be fixed anyway." He added as an afterthought.

"Get the fuck away from me!" Fyn cursed. "I've already had enough of being experimented on."

But it was no use. He was hemmed in by the kitchen counter and the cupboards, trapped like a fish in a net. With nowhere to run, he was forced to wait with his back pressed against the fridge as the big man inched towards him, moving with the towering size and unstoppable momentum of an iceberg.

Hands the size of baseball mitts closed around his shoulders, and then… Fyn felt nothing.

Karst frowned, squeezing Fyn's shoulders tighter. His bones creaked and groaned, protesting under the squeezing vice of Karst's fingers.

But Fyn still felt nothing. And it wasn't like nothingness the doctor had given. It wasn't the numb disconnection from reality; it was just nothing.

"Why isn't it working?" Karst muttered, tightening his grip further.

"Maybe you're just tired," Fyn squeaked. He could feel his muscles starting to tear under the man's grip. But the second they broke, new fibres grew, replacing the damaged tissue with stronger, more resilient stuff.

"Stop resisting!" Karst ordered.

"I-I'm not doing anything!" Fyn protested. "Seriously! I have no idea what's going on!"

Karst made eye contact with him, his brown eyes boring holes into Fyn's head.

"Shit!" he cursed. "Are they automatic too?"

"What?" Fyn asked desperately. "Is what automatic?"

Karst let go of him in disgust, tossing him aside like a used rag. "For fucks sake, they are." He turned around and started swearing under his breath, using words even more colourful than the graffiti on the side of Fyn's building. "Damnit!"

Fyn slid down the side of the fridge and sat there panting. His shoulders and neck throbbed so badly that he could feel his heartbeat through them. He would be bruised tomorrow. "What the hell was that for!?" he shouted.

"Oh, shut up!" Snapped Karst. All the levity was gone from his voice.

"No! fuck you!" Fyn spat. "You just tried to mess with my body! Again!!"

"Yeah!?" Karst whirled around and stared at him. "And it didn't work. So stop complaining."

Fyn couldn't believe what he was hearing. Was this guy insane?

"You have to be joking? Right?" Fyn asked incredulously. "That must have been like the humanist equivalent of molesting me or something!"

Karst rolled his eyes and scowled. "Look, every humanist gets their body peeked at by another humanist at one time or another; it's just how things are. Except you got lucky enough to have bloody automatic defences!"

Fyn's head was starting to hurt, and then it stopped suddenly. "Why…" he came up short. "What…" Still lost for words, Fyn fumbled to say something. "How… how do you expect me to just accept that?"

Karst shrugged carelessly. "Not my problem, mate. If you want to have any success in this line of work, you'll just have to accept it."

Right then, the microwave dinged, and he turned, opened the door and grabbed the Tupperware from inside. He opened the lid, and steam poured out, filling the room with the smell of some sort of mysterious curry. The big man gave an appreciative whistle. "I didn't know you could cook!"

"W-what?" Fyn spluttered. "Are you really just going to move past this?"

Karst - who was clearly already fully past it - stuck a freshly cleaned spoon into the bubbling mix and ate a mouthful of the curry. "Wow, that's pretty good for something made with rations." He wandered over to Fyn's cupboards and started hoking through them. "What did you use for the spices?"

Fyn watched the big man in disbelief. Karst seriously didn't think what he had just done was a big deal. That much was obvious.

"I-I" Fyn scraped the bottom of the barrel and came up empty. He had no idea what to say. Was Karst insane? Or did Fyn just not understand the world he now lived in? Probably both.

Karst sighed at Fyn and waved the spoon at him. "Will you stop blubbering and get over it. You've got automatic defences, okay?" He paused and looked down at Fyn thoughtfully. "AUTO-MATIC DEFENCES" He said this like he was talking to someone hard of hearing, enunciating every word clearly.

Fyn scowled up at him and clambered up the side of the fridge, standing on shaky legs. Adrenaline was still pumping through his body like a runaway freight train. "What does that mean?" he snapped.

"It means…" Karst growled. "That your body will reject the meddling of any other humanist... A-U-T-O-M-A-T-I-C-A-L--Y."

Fyn paused. "Really?"

"Really."

He started to grin. "That's awesome, right?"

Now it was Karst's turn to scowl. "For you, yeah."

But Fyn's grin quickly slid off his face, and he darted past Karst putting some distance between him and the big man, who was taking another spoonful of curry.

"What's wrong with you now?" Karst asked.

"I've seen how stuff like this always goes!" Said Fyn. "Since you can't have a look at my body with your powers, you're gonna cut me open to see how I tick."

With a frown, Karst shook his head. "You've watched too many pre-transit movies, kid. What could I possibly learn from that? I would need to see your body while it's working to understand everything properly, and that's not going to happen, is it?"

Fyn paused, thinking this over. He doubted he could trust everything the big man was saying, but… his reactions seemed genuine, and right now, Fyn needed the things Karst knew.

"Okay…" Fyn slunk back towards the big man but paused a few metres away, making sure to keep the door directly behind him. "So…"

"Fuck off and let me eat this!" Karst growled. "I don't want to talk about this stuff anymore."

Fyn scowled at the big man. He was just about to argue when it occurred to him that he also hadn't eaten anything in a long time, and since the last of his curry was disappearing down the Karst's gullet, Fyn needed to go to the shops to get something to eat. If he even had any money left...

"Do you still have my phone and wallet?" He asked after some deliberation.

"Huh?" Karst looked up from his spoon, confused.

"MY. PHONE. AND. WALL-LET." Fyn said, repeating Karst's earlier insult. "DO. YOU. HAVE. THEM?"

Karst gave him a furious glare and fished around in his pocket, producing Fyn's worn old leather wallet and phone. He tossed them over with more force than necessary, making Fyn fumble to grab them.

After he had managed to catch both of them, Fyn went into his cramped bedroom and changed into clothes that didn't make him look insane. When he was done, he walked back into the main room, where Karst was waiting by the door.

"I'm going to get food," he said.

Karst nodded.

Fyn glared at him.

They stayed locked in a silent battle for a few seconds, neither breaking eye contact.

Finally, through some unspoken agreement, they left together, Fyn slamming the door behind them.