Friday morning, November the 23rd, Viper woke up immediately sensing something was off.

  He couldn't put his finger on it. He got up, got dressed, enjoyed the view outside his luxurious apartment that Malton provided. It was way too nice for his tastes, but at least the view was good. He never ended up sleeping in the bed though. Can't get a wink in somethin' that fuckin' soft.

  But he trusted his instincts. They rarely steered him wrong. He trusted Rook's instincts even more, and hers were saying that Malton couldn't be trusted. Viper wasn't quite to that point yet, but he could tell there was something coming.

  He entered the little bookstore, ignoring the cheerful greeting of the shopkeep, and descended down into the lab. The other three were already there, and the day's work had already begun. They were measuring Napowsky's specific range of magical reach, as close as they could get, and Kleiner was also tracking the air between Napowsky's brain and the object he was trying to move. Every single inch with every sensor he could get his hand on, just to see if they could sense magic itself in the air.

  Nothing had worked so far.

  "What's the end-game on this one, Cor?" Viper asked quietly while Kleiner shouted impatiently at Napowsky.

  "Artificial generation," murmured Malton, while he stared at a tablet he'd hooked in wirelessly to the main console. He liked to keep moving while he watched the stats come in. Kept his mind active, as he said.

  "Like… doing magic from a computer?"

  "In a sense, yes." Malton scrolled through his tablet to a different screen, showing a diagram that Viper couldn't make heads or tails of. "I want to be able to create a self-generating system that will be able to use magic in the same way we awakened can. Our main concern right now is the human limitation. If we lose concentration, the spell breaks or worse, it backfires. A computer doesn't lose concentration. I want to remove the human factor."

  "Makes sense," said Viper. He winced as Napowsky dropped the cup he was supposed to be levitating, and it shattered on the ground. "Why're you usin' a mug?"

  "Consequence." Malton glanced up for a moment at the sound of the mug shattering on the ground, then shrugged and returned to his tablet. "If there's no consequence, Napowsky doesn't seem to put in his full effort. I'm not about to descend to medieval era encouragement, of course, but having something of Kleiner's on the line does seem to be motivating them both quite well."

  Viper smirked. "Does he know you've got whole fuckin' pallets of those damn mugs?"

  "Evidently not." Malton smiled. "Regardless, that's not the primary goal of today. This was just a warmup while we waited for you to arrive."

  "Oh?"

  "Kleiner!" Malton called, setting down the tablet. "Let's move on, shall we?"

  Kleiner, who looked like he was about to start beating Napowsky with his clipboard — which would have ended with Kleiner getting a broken nose, or much worse, if Viper knew his men — faltered, glancing over at Malton. "Are you sure, sir? I think we almost had something that time."

  "I don't want to delay any longer. This is far more important."

  "What's more important?" asked Viper, while Kleiner and Napowsky started clearing away a space in the center. Still surrounded by sensors as usual, but not a single other object beside.

  "Control, as I said," said Malton. He went back into the corner of the room, near the exit to the living quarters, and tapped at the wall safe. It was triple-locked, again with voice, retina and palm-print, in addition to a passcode.

  Viper felt the unease in his system, like little strings in his chest suddenly pulled taut. "...What do you need that for?"

  The safe made a loud beep three times before it opened. Malton reached inside and pulled out the metal vacuum-sealed tube, and uncorked it. Inside was the Scrap, sealed away after he'd awakened. He pulled it out reverently — as reverently as Viper had ever seen Malton with any object, at least. The man wasn't one for ceremony in most situations.

  "Kleiner, are you prepared?" he called. Kleiner was back in the center of the room, tapping his foot anxiously.

  "So we're awakening him now too?" Viper asked, still feeling left out of the loop. "What's going on, Cor?"

  "Just be ready," said Malton. He handed the Scrap to Napowsky and took his spot back by the console — behind the line of blast-proof shielding. Viper joined him, while his nerves screamed at him in unison to act. Something was wrong, but he wasn't sure what yet. He couldn't act if he didn't know what the threat was. Especially if he believed the threat to be the man in total control of the place.

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  "Napowsky, clear the circle."

  Viper's man retreated to the opposite side. Kleiner took a deep breath, then sat down and picked up the Scrap. He started to read, murmuring yet again.

  The instruments were recording. Viper saw the graphs begin to spit out data — but Malton wasn't watching them. This wasn't about another awakening.

  "Cor…" he started. Viper squinted at Kleiner, cross-legged in the center of the room. He finished the content of the Scrap and fell back, twitching, the same as every other awakening.

  Something was in his lap. Something dark.

  "Cor—"

  Grey-eyes appeared at Kleiner's side. She was kneeling, bent over him, whispering hurriedly in his ear. She began to read to him, to pull him back from the void. Viper started to move forward, but Malton grabbed his shoulder.

  "Hold, Stefen."

  "Cor, what the fuck is going on?" he hissed.

  Kleiner's eyes fluttered open. He took Grey-eyes' offered hand, and pulled himself back up to a sitting position. His other hand fell to his lap, so neatly and innocuously that even Viper believed for a second it was genuine.

  As Grey-eyes started into her usual speech, Kleiner moved.

  His hand shot upward. Electricity flashed. The crackling sound filled the room, deafening in the tense silence. Viper bolted forward, breaking free of Malton's grip.

  The stun-gun latched onto Grey-eyes' arm. She shuddered, twitching. Viper froze.

  Holy shit. Did we just—

  Grey-eyes stood up. The stun-gun fell away. Kleiner's eyes widened in terror.

  She turned around, and her eyes locked onto Viper's. Not Kleiner's, not Malton's — his. She knew him better than the others. He'd been around the longest. He'd witnessed the fight between the other two Gods.

  He should have known better.

  "Godammit, Cor..." Viper muttered.

  Her mouth opened.

  "You have two minutes."

  Her voice seemed to echo from every surface in the room. It was soft, but there was no doubt they'd all heard her. Viper didn't need to be told twice.

  "Wait—" called Malton, stepping out from behind the shield. Viper ignored him. He grabbed up his friend around the waist and bodily carried him up the staircase. Napowsky was only a few steps behind, following the lead of his commander. Kleiner was still dumbstruck on the floor.

  "Move, you idiot!" Viper bellowed, taking the stairs two at a time. He didn't bother with the elevator, barging through the emergency door next to it. An alarm sounded, but it just fit the scene all the better. He took one last look before he left, down at the girl in the center of the room.

  Grey-eyes was staring right back at him. Her gaze was normally soft — comforting, even. She was the key to magic itself, and she took that role as seriously as anyone Viper had ever met. He wouldn't dare mess with her. He would have warned Malton against this, if he'd known it was coming.

  Today, her eyes were full of disappointment — as if he'd betrayed her, though he didn't know her name, nor she his.

  "I'm sorry," he mouthed, while Malton continued to struggle against his grip. Napowsky was already halfway up the staircase to the surface, and Kleiner was stumbling past him.

  Her head tilted just slightly, but he saw it. Viper turned and ran, fast as he could, dragging Malton away.

  A huge rumble finally shut his friend up, like a distant explosion. Every monitor, every instrument in the room shattered simultaneously. The sound of millions of shards of glass hitting the floor echoed up the staircase after them.

  Another rumble, and a huge explosion. The stairwell heated up by a dozen degrees, and then twice that. Viper saw the walls light up with orange, but he didn't dare look behind him. He kept climbing, and suddenly Malton was ahead of him, climbing even faster.

  And Malton was laughing.

  He ran with a full-bodied laugh of pure glee as he dove through the upper door and landed in the bookstore. The entire building rumbled. Dust fell from the ceiling. Viper didn't stop at the door like the other three, but continued straight out into the street. They followed, and the shopkeeper seemed to realize what was about to happen.

  Fire spat out of every window. Glass shattered outward, though by some miracle — or magic — not a single person outside was injured. The building visibly shuddered. People backed away, across the streets, as it began to collapse inward. No debris fell away, and not a soul was at risk for a moment. The building was caving in on itself. Right in the center of London, a huge dust cloud plumed into the sky.

  They could already hear the sirens approaching. People were gathering to look at the wreckage.

  Malton kept laughing, while their painstakingly constructed lab — and every piece of data they'd collected over the past week — crumbled into dust. They'd lost everything, but still Malton laughed. Kleiner edged away, and Napowsky looked like he'd had enough of the whole insane venture.

  Viper cautiously put his hand on his friend's shoulder. "Cor?"

  "I'm fine," Malton said, calming down remarkably fast. "But I believe we'll need a new approach."

  "Let's get the fuck out of here," said Viper, glancing around at the crowd. The police were already on their way, and there were far too many eyes on them to feel comfortable. Malton nodded, and they hurried to his car parked around the corner. The four of them piled in — Viper had no idea what had happened to the shopkeep, and didn't much care — and soon they were pulling away into the city streets, far away from the building that they no longer had any connection to.

  In his rearview mirror as they drove away from the wreckage and the ensuing spectacle, Viper could have sworn he saw a person fly out of the sky, straight into the cloud of dust. As he turned the corner, though, he lost sight of them.

  Viper put it out of his head. He had more important things on his mind, like the insane man in his passenger seat with a smile plastered on his face — one of the richest men in the world, who now had access to magic itself, and with apparently no reservations on the rules he might break to achieve his goals.

  Tess, you better get back here soon. This is over the line. Way the fuck over the line.