We started the day with a swim on a beach with some decent waves. Buck loved it. Piha is not like Waiheke; there is only one cafe on the whole beach.

To get to Piha, there is a narrow, twisty road through the Waitakere Ranges, which is primarily a Regional Park. Nestled in the bush are the occasional private cabins. Piha has quite a few houses in the less steep parts. Most are surrounded by bush. A few of these were on my list to look at, both for sale and for rent.

Piha is not connected to a lot of the city's services. There is electricity and phone, but no public water supply or wastewater disposal. Roof water is collected for drinking, and onsite waste disposal systems are required. This is the same for all the west coast beaches. It keeps the housing density low and the townies away.

Buck and I walk along, looking at the mixture of beach cabins and the newer fancy houses. While we do that, we also work on some obedience training for Buck. That is going to take a bit of work. If Soph was here, she could reinforce good choices through her bond, but I need to work the old-fashioned way. His time with Soph meant he mostly came when called now.

The houses I chose to look at were all close to the beach rather than up in the hills. We were water mutants, so we needed to practice in the water as much as on land. One of them was a possibility. It was back off the beach and in the bush, although the beach was only a five-minute walk away. The neighbours were too close for my liking, so I kept looking.

That was enough looking for today anyway. The tide was in, and there was a large rock just off the coast called Lion Rock. I wanted to swim around it. I used my flippers and set out in the moderate surf. Swimming underwater was easier than in the surf but not as much fun. You also have to watch out for rips that will drag you out to sea. While it would be hard for me to drown, exhaustion was still a factor.

While I swam, the fact that the Anomaly was in the water kept going around and around in my head. Australia often had bushfires. Did the Anomaly appear in one of them and become fire-related? Were the anomalies affected by where they appeared? Those were all good questions. I needed to do more research on other anomalies that had been found.

I spent the afternoon on my laptop, synced through my phone to the internet, and read about the Indian anomaly that appeared in the slums of Chennai. It was a reddish-brown colour. It had taken a while to find it as it appeared underneath one of the slum shacks, and those living in the shack died. Death and poor health were common there.

The most interesting thing was the number of human mutations that appeared. The death rate was well over fifty per cent, possibly due to the poor condition of the people. Some of the first-hand accounts that were recorded were interesting. One elderly person said he watched his leg turn to dust and blow away. One child said she could see different patterns in the air, mostly brown and red. I was wondering if her mutation enabled her to see the essence. There was no record of what happened to her after the medical researcher finished with her. She couldn’t speak any English either, and I was reading an English translation, which may not be accurate.

The Indian researchers had tried categorising the mutations they recorded. This wasn’t easy as the level of superstition amongst the poorly educated slum dwellers was high, and there was no physical manifestation of some mutations. Some mutations seemed to be in multiple categories. Earth or dirt mutations were the most common, followed by animal mutations. There seemed to be a surprising number of effects in the blood samples that were taken, which was high on the list. Blood research was ongoing. Several people had expressed a desire to drink blood.

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I tried not to let my Western fantasy/horror stories affect me, but that sounded scary. I needed a break after reading the horror stories written by Indian scientists. How do we combat that? Would my essence control/barrier work to protect me from that? How do I strengthen that control/barrier without an anomaly to use? That is my only defence against essence, and I really need it to be as strong as possible.

Can two essence users practice against each other to strengthen their control? That would require an active essence attack. My active essence ability creates needles and poison. It doesn’t attack directly. I looked at Buck, lying exhausted at my feet. His essence attack might be direct. I need to find out what it is. All the humans controlled their mutation in some way or tried to. Buck’s mutation was random. No random is the wrong word. Uncontrolled or undirected may be better as there may still be things in Buck that may have influenced it. There is so much we don’t know.

My priorities are to work with Buck and find a way to strengthen our essence control. The laptop battery is almost empty. I am glad I got the longer-life battery on the phone, but I need a place with some electricity. I could book into a campground for a night. I pack up, for now, They can charge as I drive.

I drive to Anawhata, the next bay up the coast accessible by road. There is nothing on my list for Anawhata, but I wanted to look at the place. It looks deserted and difficult to get to. There are private houses dotted along the road and a guest house at the end. I booked into the guest house for the night.

An old couple ran the house. There were only two rooms available for rent, but there was camping space outside. Buck and I were the only guests.

“I am looking for a quiet getaway close to the beach for several months. Do you know any? I like Anawhata,” I said.

“George’s place is empty,” Mabel said, “His family finally shipped him off to a rest home, but he won’t let them sell it. It is pretty rundown.”

“Power, water, a roof and privacy are all I need. Even then, some of those can be worked around.”

“Power is a bit iffy at times here. There are a lot of trees interfering with the line. Most folks supplement it with solar panels like us. I don’t think George's place has, though.”

“I would be interested in having a look and discussing a long-term rental. You wouldn’t know where I could contact them, do you?”

“There is a number here somewhere. Fred can show you the place, and you can look from the outside.”

George’s place was a three-bedroom cottage up the Anawhata stream from the beach. I am sure the stream would flood the drive in storms coinciding with high tide. It was very basic, but the water tank held water, and there was power and a roof. We could walk down the stream to the beach in about fifteen minutes. The house was just up a hill from the stream, nestled in bush, but there was a grass area adjacent to the stream that the house looked over.

I got hold of the family, and they were happy to rent it and let me make some small upgrades. As soon as the old man died, they would be looking to sell, and if I looked after the place, I could have the first option. Sounded Ideal.

The next day, I drove the forty minutes to Auckland's West City. I signed a lease agreement and bought some portable solar panels, an axe, some machetes, and other necessities like food and something to sleep and sit on. I actually had the Ute full. I stopped and had the stripes removed as well to be a lot less recognisable as the crazy Bastard who consorts with mutants, to quote one social media post.

The internet and cell phone reception was shit. I ordered one of those satellite link internet connections, and it would arrive in a few days. The forty-minute drive to civilisation was good, and it was peaceful and quiet.

I drove into West City several times over the next few days and set myself up quite well. I got some spare cots for the Bitch and the Witch for when they came, but if they wanted luxury, they would have to bring it with them.

Once the satellite link was running, I was sorted.