Out in the beige expanses of the cosmic sea, there was an egg. It floated aimlessly, without direction, without purpose.

It’s path decided by the movements of the planets and the stars. This thing, this construct, was in essence, just another piece of cosmic flotsam. But this flotsam was loud, releasing sonorous sounds.

Sounds rippled as they traveled across various galaxies and universe. Reverberating backwards and forwards through time. Occasionally being picked up on worlds where the natives were either all just a little psychic, or there technology or natural artiface, that was capable of picking up the signals.

These signals would be changed into words, sentences, statements that in of themselves held no exact meaning but would be granted significance all the same. These statements would breed theories, schools of thought, philosophies and areas of study.

Civilizations would be born and, evolutionary paths changed. Old Worlds would fall and others would rise in their place. New worlds built on and around the sounds from the beige deep.

Entire universes would be born and be destroyed because of them. Entire timelines would be wiped out and re-written.

It’d only be later, when all this was said and done and it was too late to speak about the consequences, that the sounds would suddenly stop.

The floating egg’s journey would end as it collided with and then flew through, a dying star. Absorbing the energy needed for the egg to hatch.

Out from within the egg came a mass, that looked something like what one would get if a nest of spiders was to have regrettable, though surprisingly not  unenjoyable sex with a moon-sized squid.

A glowing body of mile thick, chitin, slime and gossamer, all of it covered in millions of tiny writhing tendrils. The freshly re-born Billy would find himself in a desolate universe of chrome, fire and darkness.

Never quite understanding why all the tech was so familiar, and why the songs that had been playing when he’d last died seemed to be popular in this new universe as well.  

*****

“Oi...you! Are you paying attention?” said Ophelia. Much put out to see that the person she’d made the presentation for, was not paying her any mind.

Billy startled, as whatever train-of-thought that he’d been letting run through the convoluted tracks in his mind, was thoroughly derailed.

They both sat in Ophelia’s office, well it was actually, Dennis’ office, but she’d chased him out because it had always been more convenient to give Dennis the bigger office and the bigger projector.

Which probably had a lot to do with the fact that it had always been more convenient to push the task of giving presentation onto ‘his’ lap.

Still today was special, because she’d finally caught hold of the Ministry’s prodigal partner and was catching him up to what he’d missed during the three years he’d been gone.

“Nh!?,...Huh?....Oh, no. I was listening. You were talking about the Albrecht resettlement issue, you’d just finished going through the issue of keeping the god-monsters from wiping out the area, and warning me about watching out for pro-Cadeyrn parties that might head after me if I enter the area, right?”

Ophelia, bit her bottom lip, her eyebrows furrowing as she gazed at the young man in front of her. On the one hand, his answer was technically correct. On the other hand she absolutely ‘knew’ he hadn’t been listening.

She had no proof of it, because some very unfortunate preliminary tests by some of the Ministry’s agents had proven that trying to read the mind of any key Bone Tree Company personnel, was fairly fatal.

Still she absolutely knew that Billy had ‘not’ been paying attention and she was absolutely irked by it.  

Not that she was going to do or say anything. Three hundred plus years was too old, to be throwing tantrums. Instead she just sighed and resumed the presentation.

Honestly everything about the man, put her off. Sure, they weren’t fighting and on the contrary the cooperation between her Ministry and his Bone Tree Company was going so well it was almost scary.

Bringing about the longest period of non-calamity since the empire’s fall. That didn’t make the man at the head of it, any less irksome. With his lack of expression, dull inflectionless way of speaking, and the haunted puzzle box he called a brain, the boy was problematic from head to toe.

Being unreadable was disconcerting for her. His being so  plainly dangerous, was something that would make anyone ill-at-ease.

It was like he didn’t realize just how much power he was holding. Like he didn’t realize how much headache his mere existence was giving to both her and the other powers-that-be.

Being in a room with Billy was like being in a gunpowder factory with a drunkard whose primary power was heat vision. Sure he had goggles was on, sure you were fine,’so long as nothing went wrong and he didn’t get angry or go crazy’ but you couldn’t help being both anxious and irritated at the same time.

Wondering just what you’d done to deserve being put in such a ridiculously perilous situation. With that being the case, she and many of her agents spent their days, watching him.

Scrutinizing Billy. Looking for any sign of insidious plotting, or mental instability. Looking for any sign that the human doomsday weapon was going to go off.

It was easy, he’d actually left an open invitation for any skilled ‘non’-agents that wanted to join either his company or the Thousand Ghosts, or the Maynard Association.

Naturally the ministry had a fair number of its officials and employees leaving their posts and finding a change in occupation.

It was both galling and worrying how very helpful the boy and his people were being about all this. Stopping just shy of literally inviting Ophelia’s people into their homes.

Not that Ophelia hadn’t ordered her people to try for “that” too.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“So what are our plans for Lloyd?” asked Billy.

Ophelia, stopped, mid-sentence, frowning because she’d gone through a lot of effort to memorize the figures that corresponded with the chart that was being projected onto the wall.

And for whatever reason, that interruption just now, had completely thrown her off her game. She frowned, biting back any outburst that might have escaped her and thinking about the man’s question.

“Well, Mister Maddoc, our operations in Lloyd seem to be going pretty smoothly. The area’s stable, the people seem weirdly fond of you.They’ve surrendered more authority and responsibility than anyone expected, but the rebuilding efforts, ‘has’ been going pretty swimmingly. So, unless something drastic happens between now and next month. I think we should probably just stay the course.”

“Nh...Okay, then, What’s next?”

*****

Ophelia frowned at the ceiling above, she shifted a bit till she was able to move aside the pointed paperweight that had been lying under her lower back.

She  lay on the plush carpeting of Dennis’s office. Using one of Dennis’s coats as a blanket. Mentally keeping track of the fact that she’d probably need to pay replace those later.

Besides the coat and the carpet there was also the desk, and the coat rack, and the chair. And she wasn’t sure, but from where she lay, she was pretty sure, that she could plainly see that one of the walls had a dent in it.

Ophelia closed her eyes, and held them close, counting for a good two minutes, while keeping her breathing even. Then she opened her eyes again and then sat up.

“Okay, what?...What the fuck did I just do?”

The next thing that they were ‘supposed’ to go  over was the number of notable god-monsters still roaming Monde.There were quite a lot of them, and it was still very much a concern.

They would have discussed which one’s were far enough from everything, and were either docile or dormant enough to be left alone for the moment.

Then they’d have talked about the ones that the Bone Tree Company and the Ministry would have to immediately deal with.

Neutralizing those more dangerous god-monsters as quickly as possible, before they devastated another of the Great Kingdoms or fell into the wrong hands.

Ophelia managed to get halfway through this, and would have gone farther, had she not dropped the stylus she was using and had to pick it up.

And even then things would have been perfectly fine had she simply let Billy pick up the stylus instead of going after it herself.

Had his hand not brushed against her own.

Had she not been standing just close enough that she could feel his just slightly below room temperature breath on the nape of her neck.

A lot of things happened, just a little too fast for even Ophelia’s lightning sharp mind to catch up to them.

All this should have still been salvageable, a mere moment of awkwardness. A pause that had lived too long.

Instead they found themselves underneath her, or rather...Dennis’s desk covered in someone’s coat, and a fair amount of sweat. The room looking like a bomb went of. Her head finally caught up to the situation and she curtly asked the young man to make his exit.

Which he did with an irksome readiness. Nonplussed in his reactions, and utterly, aggravatingly calm, as if none of this was an issue.

This bothered her for reasons she didn’t have time to fully look into and she still needed to gather herself and figure out what exactly just happened. So she simply shooed him away.  

Barely letting him dress before booting him out of the office.

Thankful that offices of all the Ministry’s senior staff were magically soundproofed and that this was a weekend. The time when most of the people in the office were out. Either home with their families or abroad on business.

The young man nodding, saying goodbye with the same, airy lack of concern that he always had.  

When he popped his head back in asking if they were still on for the operation that would be taking place next Wednesday she nearly throw something at him.

Or maybe she did throw something at him, and neither of them really paid it any mind, because the piece of bric-a-brac had harmlessly bounced off of his head.

In anycase the answer was yes, the operation for next week had to take place, otherwise trade in the continent would be in trouble.

*****

Now here Ophelia was, sitting in her own office, an hour after the presentation had finished and the boy had already left.

“What the hell did I just do?! Why did I do that? Where did that even come from?!” said Ophelia.

Her brow furrowing, as she still tried to make sense of all that had happened in the past few hours. Her look slightly wild, as she lay her mildly feverish head down on the cool glass surface of her desk.

She searched her thoughts, and found that her mind was still disordered. Whatever this was had come out of nowhere. And were it not for the the multitude of wards and protections that she had on her mind she’d have suspected that she’d been bespelled somehow.

The existence of those protections meant this anomalous “whatever” was at least mostly, born of her doing. Though she couldn’t imagine why she did it. As the adage said, one mind a psychic couldn’t read was their own..

Ophelia gnawed on a thumbnail and sat up, her expression growing slightly thoughtful.

“Can-….Can I use this somehow? Does this hurt me? Does this help me?...Shit.”