In person, the warehouse was dry and cool. Whether this was due to adequate server storage procedures or the radical shift in atmospheric conditions being vomited over the city remained anyone’s guess. I suspected the latter. The subtle hum of an electrical generator thrummed in close quarters, but its energy seemed to be put towards keeping the god bombs running. The building’s lights were off, the space instead lit by dim natural daylight coming down through narrow windows far up in its walls.

Siphon was on a time limit, which Ngai had to have realised. The city’s power couldn’t have completely shut down, or Providence would be doing a lot more than sending out mortal spies. But if the government had started rationing, and hadn’t figured out it was computers holding the gods at bay, the barriers could fall at any moment. Not that time was a resource I had much of anyway.

Cutting short that line of thought, I focused on the raised voices nearby.

“– you understand that, don’t you?” Louis Ngai was appealing, somewhere between asking and yelling. “It’s us or them, no two ways about it. Even if you’re right, it doesn’t matter. The mad ones will come for us anyway. This defence is our only hope, whether as weapon or bargaining chip.”

“Did it ever occur to you,” Neetu responded, one hand on the computer mouse, “that maybe no one would be ‘coming for you’ if you hadn’t tried to enslave them in a piece of machinery?”

“There you go again with the ‘you’,” Ngai responded. He pushed his glasses up a nose slick with sweat I doubted had anything to do with the atmosphere. “It’s not ‘you’. It’s ‘us’. Humanity is all on the same side. As for enslavement, you’re barking up the wrong tree. This is self-defence. No more slavery than locking dangerous criminals into prison.” He eyed the sergeant’s uniform pointedly while gesturing at the nearby computer. “Something you should understand. The only difference is, we don’t have laws to cover these threats. But we will. The gods don’t care about us, and certainly not about you. What we built finally gives us a fighting chance.”

“Oh, great plan,” Neetu returned. She waved the mouse in his vague direction. “You decided to make them care about you. Angrily, in retaliation. And now we’re cut off from the rest of the world, and the gods are on the warpath. Truly an excellent job.”

Louis sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, just under the glasses already back on their way down. “Take a step back. Right now, we’re in terrible danger, yes?” He enunciated his next words slowly. “Let’s all agree we need this resource to keep us alive, unless any of you are especially keen on throwing your lives away. No one says ‘I told you so’ from under a grave.”

I also wanted that resource. I tuned out again, mind racing to figure out how to proceed. Decontaminating Amulet Tez and explaining the situation wasn’t the no-brainer it should have been. With his link to Primary Tez, altering one of their minds risked the other finding out. He’d have to stay compromised for now. I also had to assume Primary Tez had a window into everything going on in this room.

Simple distraction wouldn’t cut it. Not for something this important. Even if Tez didn’t suspect something immediately, it would have to be long-term enough to fool his future sight.

Misdirection had to be it, then. Tricky, but not impossible, as evidenced by the fact Amulet Tez wasn’t already reacting. Good sign. Centuries spent annoying Apollo had apparently prepared me for this moment. Past me doing current me proud.

I assumed Tez would be waiting for his other self to come and collect. Short term, I assumed, though if Baldr gave the order to sit there indefinitely in preparation, the seer would do it.

I scoured the superweapon in question through the eyes of my visitation, noting the details of its appearance. In my current state I could probably copy its physical side to perfection, down to a functional machine. Power continued to thrum through me, saturating me with light-headedness and false confidence only counterweighted by barely-suppressed futility.

But I still wasn’t an abstract practitioner. Not in any sense I understood, at least. Between my latest dimensional workings and whatever chaotic focal point was distorting events around me, I was coming round to the idea I had something. Just not the kind you could mimic software with.

Not personally. Next to me, Gia had moved on to quietly decontaminating Neetu, whose brain-laptop this time resembled a tablet with no keys to depress and make noise in the process. Abstract enough to create a whole world out of data, even a small one on a foundation already divine in origin.

I spat Lucy’s soul jar into existence in my waiting fingers, registering its weave of energy flare into ready stability, and held it between Gia and the laptop screen.

She looked at me, face lined with tension.

Soul jar, I explained, jerking my chin towards the space behind the shipping container. Simpler version of the one they have back there. Think you can make it compatible with the main repository?

The analyst held my eyes for a second before focusing on the silver flask. Raidho flared from her palm, and I worked to keep my adrenaline under control. Tez belonged to the wrong pantheon to pick up on it, but it still gave me nerves this close in proximity. It was hard to be sure with gods. We tended to break as many rules as we set.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Still no reaction from Tez, though, which meant I was either on the right track or being deliberately set up for disappointment. Charming.

Maybe, Gia replied. Her hands gripped the edge of the tablet. I don’t know. Are we making a remote copy?

Transfer. Assuming the absence on the other end doesn’t give us away.

Then we’ll need a connection between devices.

I scrunched my nose. What’s the file size of a soul these days? Can we use Wi-Fi?

The analyst gave me a look.

It’s a serious question, I defended myself. We might need a lot of storage capacity.

Gia sighed, quietly. I suppose I can figure something out.

A temporary lull had opened in the argument nearby. I had Regina pick up the conversation with Louis, facing away from the computer, and switched visitations to Neetu. I gave her the same spiel as Regina. With them both free of Baldr’s influence, I could explain myself if it came to it. For now, the focus was on evading Tez.

The sergeant opened a text editor and typed carefully into it. [Are you crazy? You want to support their insane plan?]

“Only a little bit. And only against gods who aren’t me.” I grinned at her. “And I wouldn’t call it ‘supporting’ so much as ‘stealing from under the nose of our enemies and using their hubris against them’. As my inside woman, all you need to do is pretend nothing’s wrong. All going well, we create a little havoc, topple a few dictators, and address some long-standing universal inequities. Vive la révolution or whatever, no guillotines necessary.”

[Won’t you be doing the same thing to they did to you?]

“Tempting,” I admitted, glancing back over the warehouse. “Very tempting. But no. We rehabilitate them into a new ecosystem and release the captives back into the wild to annoy people there. Shunting them off onto equal footing should take care of that. They’ll have enough angry faces to deal with in the fallout.”

[And how badly will this break things?]

I looked at her. “Such little faith. Horribly, naturally. Because they need to be broken. Unless you really think this is as good as it’s ever going to get.”

[No telling Tez?]

“No telling Tez. Ever.”

Neetu nodded, highlighted her text, and hit delete.

All the pieces I was ever going to get were in place. It was time for the retaliation to begin.

Lucy’s soul jar, in typical form, made for a sleek and elegant laptop; a silver machine bearing similar engravings to the original hip flask. Feeling tense, I watched over Gia’s shoulder as she fiddled with settings, alternating my attention between her and Neetu as Regina worked on distractions.

Got it, said Gia, showing me a rather mundane list of network connections in the top right of the screen.

I squinted at the desktop behind it. It contained exactly one icon labelled ‘Lucifer’s computer’ and appeared to be running Providence’s operating system, which raised more questions than it answered. Well, as long as it did the job.

“Connect to the new device,” I instructed Neetu, walking her through the process to Gia’s specifications. “Carefully.” I kept an eye on Tez, ready to give the word if he looked ready to check in. No doubt he was watching the future; I couldn’t leave it to chance.

A prompt appeared for a password. Lucy’s cleared it; justification for all the times I’d spied over his shoulder. He hadn’t changed it.

A new icon appeared on the soul jar’s desktop, labelled with a string of unidentifiable numbers. It expanded into a field of folders. It’ll take time to sort through this, Gia stated. I’ll have to copy the lot.

Not ideal. I didn’t want an extra version of Themis and Quil to deal with. Is there space?

She brought up a few more windows, and raised her eyebrows. Apparently your soul jar is equal to… approximately two hundred times the world’s total server capacity. And I think that’s because the display ran out of zeroes.

Ah, I said. Trust Lucy to source the best. Then let’s do it.

Transferring the whole shebang to a new machine wasn’t an option. Removing Siphon’s copy would be picked up the moment Tez looked into the future; it had to stay running. Faking a copy of the captured gods was far more logistically-complicated and time-consuming than I wanted to deal with, and I didn’t see an immediate alternative.

I found myself wincing. I supposed in the wider context of things, there were worse sacrifices than creating extra copies of lesser autocrats. They’d have to deal with themselves later.

Ten extremely tense minutes later – a surprisingly speedy timeframe I planned on referencing if Quil ever got the chance to insult me again – and the copy was up and running. With Regina’s help, we cleared a new area of containment field, and dropped back to slightly improved safety.

It also happened to be my old apartment. It hadn’t changed since I’d left it; Tez’s refurbishments for Parvati still in place. I sat down on the rug, materialised my latest company phone into existence, and swapped it for the jar for Gia to infect with god bombs.

The soul tablet had the dialogue window up on screen, a flickering cursor waiting for input.

[What’s happening?] read the last line of text. [Is anyone there?] And then remained still.

Part of me felt a stab of sympathy. I didn’t like Themis and never had, and she’d sent plenty of people to comparable fates or worse. It still wasn’t a nice place. I leant back until my head hit the wall and typed into the window, aware Tru had trotted up to watch over my shoulder.

[Hello, Themis,] I typed. [It’s time you and I had a serious chat.]

I didn’t get a response immediately. When it did come, it appeared slowly, as if thinking it over. [Who am I talking to?] it asked.

[Doesn’t matter. Not Siphon.]

There was another pause. [I take it you want to broker a deal, then.]

[Good guess,] I typed. [And since it’s you, I’m assuming you’re not a fan of that idea.]

[Do I have a choice in the matter?]

[Not really, no. Apparently Siphon can force you to do what they want in there. I’m at least offering you the opportunity to do it under your own power.]

[You’ll have to let me out for that. I won’t accomplish anything from here.]

I accepted my phone back from Gia, newly laden with divinity hazards, and saw a new laptop materialise in her hands. “For them,” she explained, and didn’t wait for permission.

First Djehuti, now Themis. It was progress. Not enough, not even with Ms Compliance, but some. Even Quil and his trigger fingers would be useful, if only to blow up any more containment devices from a distance. [Let me tell you a story,] I typed into the window, after Gia had moved on to the next captive. [It starts with a boy who had all the love in the world. It ends with the truth.]

And for the first time in my life, I could finally, finally tell it.