“His name?” I asked, “who was that guy?”

Daniel nodded, “Constantine Doukas. He’s Greek. He appears to have been raised in one of the Cabal’s hidden colonies. The Nine had some kind of connection to that colony and he ended up fighting us, but here’s the interesting thing—the Nine have their own power impregnators. He went through one and the ability to do that appeared.”

“No shit,” Cassie pushed back from the table. “I don’t know if I told you this, but the first time I fought the Nine, the time Nick picked me up in Washington D.C., I fought another orange guy. He wasn’t the same. He was more spider-like with glowing orange legs that contained some kind of hot liquid? Think they’re related?”

“No idea,” I said, glancing over at Daniel.

Daniel raised his hands, “I didn’t get much more than what I’ve told you, but if the Nine’s got a pool of Cabal people, who knows? It’s possible.”

Looking up and down the table, Jaclyn said, “What I’m wondering is what Magnus was scared of. Didn’t he just activate the device? That worries me.”

Rachel leaned in, “That’s what I was wondering.”

“Me too,” I said. “My best guess is that since he knows about the Artificers, he’s afraid of attracting their attention with the device, but it’s possible that’s not it. Just before we went out to fight the mushroom zombies, I ended up fighting something in um… whatever in-between space Artificers and Cosmic Ghosts use. My theory is that it was him.

“I can’t say that I won that fight, but I did hurt him. So it might be that he’s afraid of me. Thing is, I mostly ran and hid because his form as an Artificer is bigger than mine.”

Vaughn made a noise that sounded like, “snerk.”

Haley shook her head while Cassie laughed.

Raising her voice above the noise, Jaclyn said, “If all we can do is look at the team’s old records, let’s start doing that. I’m going to call my grandfather in case this is something he can talk about.”

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* * *

Thousands of Years Ago, Earth

Thirty-one Abominators lay on the floor, all of them dead. Every single one of them had died from being stabbed or slashed by an edged weapon.

Their grey, five-limbed, malleable bodies didn’t look much better in life than death, but the gaping holes in their bodies tipped the scales toward worse.

The dark fluids leaking from those holes didn’t help.

If it weren’t for the bodies, the room would at least have looked like a lab. Exactly what kind of lab wouldn’t have been obvious unless you were an Abominator.

To the untrained eye, it appeared to be a room full of machines and screens. Many of the machines were made with the same blue-green metal.

Lee didn’t need to be trained to recognize the machines. As a member of a species that had seen them invented again and again, he had billions of years of observational experience behind him.

He knew the look of certain eras and types of technology. The Abominators had species specific variations, of course. Their shapeshifting physiology allowed them to disregard ergonomics. Is a device you need blocked from view by another device?

No problem. Grow a foot taller and look over the device in front.

Does the device run from floor to ceiling? Still not a problem. Reach around the device in front with your arms and grow new eyes on your hands.

Despite the cluttered mess of the room, most of the machines were for analyzing genetic structures of various species and chemical compositions, translating them to a different species’ system, testing the converted version, and implanting it in a new species.

The exception to the rule and the collection of supporting machines weren’t about genetic manipulation at all.

They’d been designed to create a pocket universe and keep a multi-universal creature inside it, separate from most of itself, but still accessible for the purpose of conversation and genetic sampling.

In the middle of the blue-green machines stood a silver and black disc. This one was around ten feet wide.

It took no special insight to recognize that they’d caught someone.

A translucent dome extended from the disc. It wasn’t a physical object. The product of some system that allowed energy to act like matter as long as the power ran, it gave the contents inside a smokey, grey tint.

Inside stood a human by all appearances. In his twenties with dark brown hair, dark skin, and wearing a worn, brown robe, this human didn’t look any different from any other.

If he’d seen him in the street, Lee might have ignored him.

He didn’t that day. He knew the guy.

“Nataw, dammit. I told you not to stick around. These assholes have been looking for us for ages and you’re too trusting.”