Robert Bonson had worked in liaison since graduating in the top thirty percent of Nyx and Aether. It was a stable desk job, but that was the most that could be said about it. He’d put on about ten pounds since the start, despite resolving to keep up his exercise regimen. As it turned out, popularity in school didn’t necessarily translate to the world outside, which was unfortunate because he'd been delusional for a while longer than he should have. On the bright side, it didn’t interfere with his piles of paperwork, it simply made his quiet fall more painful.

Realizing he wasn’t going to be promoted to a private office within a month of hiring was a blow to his ego, it also necessitated his remaining at home for an additional six months with his overbearing mother with whom he now realized he had a toxic relationship, and it wasn’t easy to keep himself apart from her because she was a skilled sleuth, but he’d finally got himself into an apartment that she had no access to and it wasn’t trash.

That might be why she didn’t know where he was. She had zero faith that he could do anything decent on his own.

But dealing with the truth about his parental relationships was another issue and he wasn’t ready for all that.

The upside was that his intense focus on anything and everything but his childhood led him to overtime hours and the pay he needed to get a place in that secure building. His next step was to prove himself competent and move into the Sphere of Enigma. It was a department that officially didn’t exist and the fact that he knew about it at all was a point, but he still had a long way to go. His atypical reasons for wanting a position would be open to scrutiny, it wasn’t a sense of patriotic duty that was for sure, but he thought they were strong enough to get him in the door and if rumors proved true, others had made much stranger cases for themselves and were still accepted.

The thing was that once someone took on a role like that, there was no going back. Your future was set. Marriages ended on no grounds except that a piece of the couple was moving into the Sphere. You couldn’t take anything with you and you weren’t coming back out, at least not recognizably.

That wasn’t a problem for him. He had no relationships worth keeping at this point and while part of him did feel bad for his mother, he couldn’t live his life for her. She would find something else to obsess over and it wasn’t like he’d disappear without a word. He’d make sure she knew what was going on at the outset, but that would be it. He couldn’t take care of her like that. She had money, plenty of it, and that was half the problem. The woman thought she could hold it all over his head, forcing him to stay by her side until she found a suitable daughter-in-law. An old-world attitude that he wasn’t okay with anymore.

He supposed he didn’t get it when he was younger. The fact was a lot of the old families were like that, still drawing up marriage contracts and installing their adult children in one another's departments. Interning in places they had no business in for a month before being shepherded into a high-paying position.

He’d refused and his mother was furious over it, but he’d learned his real place in the world and was determined to make something of himself by himself. He didn’t need a leg up; he didn’t need a handout. He’d already gone from renting an infested single room to a security spelled flat; he was moving up and planned to go further without worrying about other people.

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Not that he’d ever left much space in his mind to do that before...

Which wasn’t something to be proud of and he wasn’t, but now he thought he was at least doing it for the right reasons. Or maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was still a selfish brat at the end of the day, but he was blaming that on his mommy issues and trying to change and that had to count for something.

“Hey, Bob, can you get through this for me? Can’t make heads or tails of this report.”

He’d become a first-rate yes man and he wasn’t about to break the streak. This pile of papers was going to take him into overtime again, which he was fine with. “Sure, Cal. No problem.”

“Thanks, man. I owe you one.”

Fortunately, Calhoun was good for that sort of thing; he wasn’t saying it with no intention of repayment. Robert wasn’t doing the work looking for a kickback, but he wasn’t going to argue about getting on the good side of the department head. That was an endorsement he was going to need later on.

Not long after starting to read through the report, however, Robert realized he’d taken on something he might not be ready for. It was no wonder Cal couldn’t get a grip on it; half this shit was redacted!

“Uh, Cal?” he called across the office.

“Yeah, Bob, what’s up?”

“I think this came to our place by mistake.”

“Huh,” he took the papers back. “Yeah, that makes sense. I’ll find out where it’s supposed to go. Thanks, again. I still owe you.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Really. Please don’t because if that was the kind of thing that went to Sphere, and he had the sinking feeling that if it was, then he’d changed his mind about the whole thing.

Unless it was already too late.

Now his mind was in overdrive and he didn’t want to believe it, but he couldn’t shake the feeling because that kind of report didn’t accidentally find its way to an incorrect department. It was supposed to be spelled into safety. He shouldn’t have been able to read it at all and if Cal had seen it for what it was, he would have known immediately that it was in the wrong place.

That meant he and Calhoun saw two different things.

The Sphere knew he was gunning for that transfer and he was going to get it whether he liked it or not. You didn’t get to look at that intel and walk away. It was join or lose your memories and that was an imperfect branch of magic at best. There were too many connections, too many deep places, to properly alter the history of the mind. If that was done to him, he was going to find himself in a care facility.

Or his mother’s waiting arms.

No. No, he wasn’t going back to that. He’d made up his mind.

But that report...

He knew prophecy was a thing, of course it was, but it was also downplayed to such a level that ninety-nine percent of Society devoted zero brain power to the idea and he was right there with them. Considering it now, it made sense that Enigma would be, at least in part, delving into that arena.

Somehow, he’d never thought of it before and now it was in his face.

A rising moon, sets the sun.

Takes the place of rivers run.

What did that even mean? And the rest of it. He didn’t want to think about it at all, but he couldn’t get it out of his head.

The brightest shine of blackest night,

Will take its place in the death of light.

He had no frame of reference for any of that. He wasn’t qualified.

Yet he'd seen it and it wasn’t an accident.

“Sorry, Mom,” he whispered as he was escorted to a lift.

He wasn’t going to get to tell her what was happening after all.