The Sphere of Enigma was all he heard it to be and nothing like he thought it would be simultaneously.

The rumors about the strict nature of the department were true. He no longer had any contact, whatsoever, with the world outside the section unless sanctioned. It was also true that they dealt with areas of research and development that were not so much as discussed elsewhere.

The differences were more atmospheric.

He’d supposed those who worked in this field to be terrifying, highly professional, and wearing cloaks of black. Shadows in the night.

Instead, they dressed in what he’d learned they called ‘nerd couture’ and he was quickly given a makeover so that he fit in. Suspenders and glasses with tape in the middle, they wore brown and orange checkered prints and socks with sandals.

It wasn’t that they never went outside, it was more about who they socialized with. Which, as he’d previously suspected, was no one much, but the people they did come into contact with were not magic users; that he’d had no idea was even an option.

In fact, he was on a mission now. He was to integrate himself into the life of a single woman with two children. His profession was that of a mail delivery person, for cover, and he was known to also have children. Those children, as a matter of fact, were the product of developments within the Sphere. They were not human, they were called robots or automata. Something he’d never heard of before initiation.

The Sphere of Enigma was invested in more than magic. There were, indeed, projects related to anything and everything of interest, but those interests weren’t necessarily those of Society at large. As it turned out, much of their work was personal interest with a Society-focused outcome.

He, Robert Bonson, was the newest member of the team and therefore did not have the backing to pursue something of his own design. There was a training period, to test his dedication and ability to follow the rules to the letter because that was a non-negotiable; loose lips were memory wiped and placed in assisted living, which in his case would mean his mother.

His greatest fear.

He’d been told exactly what would happen if he proved untrustworthy and he was determined to avoid that fate, no matter the cost to anyone else. And that was exactly what they wanted from him. He didn’t feel great about it, but then again he doubted any of them did.

Already, someone died for this, which was not an expected development and certainly not what he hoped to experience on his first mission. He was the getaway driver, already not comfortable in the least with the plan, and then Jones went and had the life sucked right out of him.

The target did die, but not as intended. He didn’t pass until an intervention in the hospital. He’d been shot, as planned, lay dying, as planned, and then brought back with the life force of the one who shot him which was, needless to say, not planned and a big problem because unplanned incidents meant further investigation and because he was involved that fell to him, so now he was David Wentworth, a single father with three android children who were still under development, and he was tasked with surveilling the household of Autumn Gold because her niece, an orphan named Luna Rysing, was witness to what happened with her Uncle Reginald. No one else was there during the incident.

All that to say, his life was decidedly more complicated than it used to be.

And it got worse, if you could believe it, because not only was Luna the immediate bystander to the event, but she fit the profile of a prophecy that’d been in the Sphere’s library for at least a couple hundred years. The one he saw initially, on the papers ‘accidentally’ sent to his original department that tipped him off to his impending initiation to the cult. It still didn’t make any sense to him whatsoever, but that wasn’t material. The point was that Luna Rysing fit the bill and she brought her uncle back from the brink of death by taking the life force of his killer, Rob’s coworker Jermery Jones.

Stolen novel; please report.

Terrible fate.

There was also a whole lot of debate around the office about the potential role the child played in the disconnecting of every single camera in the parking garage, thereby concealing all relevant evidence and her role in the crime.

None of this was known outside the Sphere. They operated autonomously and reported what they wanted when they felt it was necessary. Budgets were submitted officially and they sold developed tech on the side.

The members of the Sphere did not subscribe to the majority thinking in Society. Magic was not the end-all-be-all, far from it, and yet the technologically advanced world was not perfect either. Even the two combined would still fail to solve the problems of humanity, but that wasn’t their aim.

Actually, he wasn’t sure what the hell they were doing. The mission statement wasn’t on the wall anywhere and nobody seemed to remember what it was nor did they care.

The last report was sent back because none of the old farts on the main committee could conceive of a child performing such dark magic and few people took prophecies seriously anymore, so the whole incident was flying under the radar except for those in the Sphere. They weren’t interested in the ethics of it all, but they did want to understand what the fuck was going on.

It was crazy.

At least the days were sliding by; he didn’t even know how long he’d been in the Sphere at this point. Weeks and months blended into one another. Also, his morals were in rapid decline. He hardly felt bad about the deception he was leading which was good for the group, bad for him on a personal level.

He’d recently found pertinent information, which added to the mystery of the child Luna Rysing.

When she wasn’t around, her aunt forgot she existed and so did her daughter Georgia. Comments about Luna slid by unnoticed when she was out of sight and when she was there, they had no idea she'd ever been gone.

That couldn’t happen by accident.

Looking into the quick recovery of Autumn Gold after the sudden murder of her husband raised alarms, too, because it wasn’t even a week after the fact and she was selling the house, buying a farm, and doing all the things she was now busy with. That was unnatural. The human mind took time to process traumatic situations and while some people did bury themselves in work, in an attempt to escape the feelings, that didn’t appear to be what she was doing. Autumn was very literally moving on with her life and that was inconsistent with her personality prior to Reginald’s death. Considering their long relationship, healthy and affectionate by all accounts, it was a glaring sign of tampering with the mind.

Even if it was that alone, they would have kept digging, but it wasn’t. There was so much more.

And Luna was the common denominator.

So.

He didn’t know what she was, none of them did; in her file they listed ‘wunderkind’ but that was inadequate if she was changing psychological states and maintaining complete deceptions while away doing whatever it was she did.

Knowing all of that made it difficult to figure out next steps. Following her specifically would be ideal, but if she was as powerful as it seemed it wouldn’t work and may put the follower in mortal danger. That wasn’t a risk they were willing to take, so mostly passive observation was the executed method despite the relative lack of material information it was bringing in.

Life was frustrating in a different way now. His mommy troubles were behind him, but this was a whole other problem and he wasn’t sure he would have made the trade had he known what was in store. Regret did him no good, of course. There were no takebacks here. This was his day-to-day.

He took the role of mail delivery person from the actual worker for just this single stop, which wasn’t as simple as it sounded because, despite their autonomous nature, the Sphere remained bound by magic circles to most of the laws that governed Society. They had ways around many of them, as they were full of holes, and ninety percent, if not more, failed to take the non-magic side of the world into account at all, but Luna was magic, and that had implications.

Or something.

He wasn’t sure if he believed that to be all she was, but they’d tried to step over the lawful lines in her case and the backlash was immediate so she was at least magic enough to benefit from the natural extension of the Law.

Society and the Law. Could have been a garage band, which he knew about now because part of his cover story involved his son and the band he’d formed in the wake of his mother’s death. None of which was real, obviously, but it worked on Autumn. Which was sad.

Honestly, he felt bad about the whole thing. From the get-go, it was clearly not a morally upright operation and he wanted no part of it. As the newest initiate in the Sphere, though, he didn’t get to make those kinds of decisions. It made life really real, really fast and he didn’t appreciate it.

His personal feelings were not to be taken into account so it didn’t matter.

He was the one to spot Luna leaving with a vampire, so he got to be the distraction while someone else went through the house looking for clues.

He was now long into this deception, he didn’t know where or when it would end, and…

The farm was on fire.