I entered Flinq’s office somewhat more cautiously on the second run, afraid of what I’d find. It was about what I’d expected.

“You failed,” my boss declared, running the ‘V’ of one hand over her forehead. The vista in her windows had exited daytime and moved on to twilight, with pink and blue lanterns drifting past in the gardens.

“Sorry,” I said, watching them. “Didn’t fancy dying.”

A handful of conjoined paper sheets drizzled from a slot in one of the office walls, long enough to brush the ground: a descriptive printout from my tracer. Covered would be everything from the moment I’d swallowed it to the moment it fizzled out. Standard operating procedure. Should anyone try to take apart the wall behind it, not that it was likely, they’d find a small part of the Machine burrowing through the multiverse.

Flinq sighed. “Well, at least there’s the debrief. Three attempts down. Looks like we’ll need to hand this up the chain.”

“You could have warned me,” I protested a little bitterly. “That universe is a deathtrap, with its way out also a deathtrap, and now I’m wondering if you want to get rid of me.”

To my relief, Flinq shook her head, green tresses flouncing from side to side. “Never. We don’t hire bad operatives.”

“I wasn’t technically hired,” I reminded her, and was met with a backhanded wave.

“You’re fine. Although I do have to give you the fail. I’ll resubmit the assignment and place it with a Pen or Hex. One with the right specialities. No one else will die. Er, except the Rein, naturally.”

“How was it missed the first time?” I asked, still angry. “I thought the Machine was never wrong.”

Flinq’s face was grim. “I don’t know. The reports only marked failures. No one mentioned anything about casualties.”

Outside the windows, one of the cultivated topiaries stretched, climbed out of its soil bed and crawled on several equally long limbs across the garden until it passed out of frame of the vista. I frowned. “About that. Did a survivor make it back while I was gone?”

“If they did, I’m not aware of it.”

“Someone got out,” I reported. “I think they used me to do it. I know where they went, though after the last experience I wasn’t exactly keen to follow them in.”

“What do you mean, ‘used you’?”

I waved my arms in a semi-helpless gesture. “If I’d encountered anything like it before, I might be able to describe it better. They were in the Interstice with me, and they weren’t subtle.” I tore my eyes away from the garden, where more nocturnal topiaries were already following in the footsteps of the first, and back to Flinq’s face. “There’s no chance it could have been the Rein, is there?”

My boss blinked. “Surely not before reincarnation. But I’ll write it up just in case. If he did get out, he can still be brought in. Multiversal transit is hardly an obstacle.”

She was holding it together well, but I recognised the familiar strain. We dealt with death; there was no way around it. And while usually we were the ones causing it, there was something about plunging into the total unknown with only a handful of reality-altering augments for protection that tended to bring home the fact death could work both ways. Especially at the lower tiers.

Outliers like myself aside, Chapel staff had been hand-selected for eventual ascent. Killing us wasn’t supposed to be easy. But it did happen. And unlike the Reins, we didn’t come back.

“This one was strange in other ways,” I mentioned, in case it jogged something at Flinq’s new clearance levels. “He was older than usual. Grizzled. And he was a… captain, I think? Or at least in charge of a massive space mine. Candidates don’t have authority.”

“They don’t,” Flinq agreed. “At risk of sounding unprofessional, it’s weird.”

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“Will a second-tier be enough to handle this?” I asked with some dubiousness. “And someone needs to look into the Machine.”

My boss-for-not-much-longer let out a snort. “Good luck with either of those. Third-tiers are off the roster, you know that. And I don’t think there’s a soul around who understands the Machine.”

“If the Machine’s making mistakes,” I insisted, “we all need to know. And you could always send a team.”

“Maybe I will, at that. We can’t keep losing resources, and something’s certainly going on with this Rein. We need to make sure it isn’t going to spread. I don’t know about the Machine, but we can try and assign diagnostics. Just don’t get your hopes up.”

If she thought I was likely to do that, she’d mistaken me for the wrong person. I grimaced over my teeth.

Flinq noticed it. “I’ll figure something out. Spend long enough killing and it stops being about people and starts being about numbers. There has to be some light at the end of the tunnel.”

“The secrecy gets to me,” I confided.

A splat on the ground below my aching arm reminded me I was in pain and bleeding grievously, and probably needed to transform back into a vehicle before long. The arm felt cold. That I needed reminding was indicative of the sort of profession I held, and supported my supervisor’s point. That Flinq was fine with me delaying medical attention while a dozen red trails carved their way down my skin also spoke to hers.

She nodded. “We determine the fate of worlds. Confidentiality is paramount. When you advance, you’ll learn as much as me. Although…” She looked at the arm.

“I know. When you find out who died, pass on my condolences to whoever cares.” I paused, catching another drop from my elbow before it could widen the puddle on the floor reflecting the lanterns. “It shouldn’t have happened this way.”

“No,” agreed Flinq. “I honestly don’t know what went wrong. But,” she added, “I’ll find out. Get some rest, Lamutri. And the next time we meet, I hope you’ll be sitting here with me.”

I gave her a smile I didn’t feel and plodded back to the ever-present staircase. Outside the office, I stopped pretending to be brave and held my hand to the arm, pressing the wound into place. It didn’t do much to temper the flow.

Shouldering open the door, I emerged into the loading bay I shared with Imbertri, light-headedly walked to the centre of it and triggered Gear Shift. Immediately the pains eased. I had a significant dent and a fuel leak which would shut me down after a while, but at least it wouldn’t kill me.

No one was around, so I waited and let my thoughts drift while my lifeblood made its way to the floor.

Another failed assignment. It was hard to tell if it had been Near Miss at work or if I’d have failed anyway. Certainly I suspected my core was why I’d survived; if the Black Waste and its Rein had taken out two or more prior agents, even at low tiers, I’d flown into terrible danger. At least now the problem would be escalated.

As I did frequently these days, I thought about what I’d purchase for augment four. After upgrading Near Miss. Probably something for physical protection, since it kept coming up as an issue.

It wasn’t what I’d envisioned for myself at the beginning. After moving past the whole shock of recruitment and associated adjustment period, I’d fantasised about becoming a master strategist cunning enough to bargain my way out of performing assassinations. Naïve. Failing that, at least I could lean into it and be cool; a paragon of elegance stalking the night with a deadly and merciful blade.

In reality, our earliest augments tended to shape the trajectory. All of my mishaps had led to Gear Shift and an ability to handle rougher terrain. Now that I was proactively receiving those assignments, the danger wouldn’t simply go away. Personally, I wasn’t sure why – in an expansive multiverse – we didn’t just recruit candidates exclusively from the easier worlds. Presumably the higher tiers had their reasons.

Augments came in countless forms. Other than World Slide, essential as a condition of employment, it was uncommon to see the same one twice. Everyone’s needs were different. Right now, a repair or shielding ability would be nice. Regenerative augments were also tempting, but I wasn’t sure they’d work on non-organics and didn’t know anyone else in my situation to ask. Not that I could predict how any of my augments would work, anyway.

It also depended on what the Chapel had in stock, how expensive it was, and patience. With Near Miss determined to ruin my chances in the long haul, I’d probably just take the best and cheapest there was available.

At the end of all this was supposed to be reward and reprieve. Greater power and cushier assignments. Immortality, if we could make it that far. Second-tier – Quad to Hex – didn’t grant that much. But it bought time, authority and answers.

And I was sick of being the last one left behind. My accidental recruitment had already left me with something to prove, and I’d utterly failed to prove it. Logically, I knew Near Miss was the problem, but it was hard not to feel like Fate itself had pointed a finger and deemed me unworthy. I’d stolen an elite opportunity meant for somebody else, and now justice had come to correct itself.

I watched my fuel deplete onto the floor of the bay, too late to transform back and unable to do anything to stop it, and trusted in my value to the Chapel. They altered worlds and performed wonders. Fixing me was no issue at all.

Then the last of the fuel ran out and my mind shut down like a vise, leaving no room for function.