The potion’s effect was immediate. Sharp, searing agony strained at my magical boundaries with no more room to give. I choked on my gag reflex, clamping a hand on my mouth to keep from spitting the liquid up, and the pain worsened. Flinpen gripped the other palm.

Compulsively, I convulsed – physically and metaphysically, firing all three augments in reflex at once; even Near Miss, a sprawling, enormous thing I’d somehow failed to notice – flinging my handler away in the stutter between forms. Dimly I was aware of trashing the room, gouging long tears in the bed and striking the lenses from their skylight holder into a hail of glass on the floor.

And then the impediment finally cracked, weakness leading to rupture, and the magic I’d been holding in at long last had somewhere else to move, streaming out of the tear to relieve the tension.

I sobbed in the shock of it, heel of one hand to my face, and blinked in a rainbow disco of reflected glass. Shards of it dropped clinking from my hair and the broken edge of the bed, and from Flinpen backed into the far corner.

My magic continued to drain, slower after the initial floodgates, expanding to fill a new reservoir. I could feel it for the first time, twice what it used to be and only half complete. The relief was immeasurable.

My handler shook prisms from her clothes and crunched across the multicoloured floor. I could sense her without looking, and not just because of the Chapel marker. “That was something.”

I wiped the sweat from my forehead and stared at the red stain on my palm, only to wipe at it frantically again.

Flinpen caught my wrist. “You’ll be fine. You’re not first-tier anymore, Lamu –” She stopped.

Not because of the name change. At least not inherently.

“I’m not technically a Quad,” I agreed, wiping my forehead with my other hand anyway. “I don’t know if I can still qualify using Lamutri at second-tier. Maybe just Lamu for now?”

She shook her head, concern written in her eyes. “Don’t insult yourself. As your senior, I ratify Lamutri as an interim measure. We’ll figure out something more appropriate later.” She removed the hand from my wrist. “How do you feel?”

“How do I look?” I returned. That was the important factor if I wanted to continue this mission.

I felt very different. My repairs in the Chapel had felt how I’d imagined reaching second-tier to be. The reality wasn’t close.

The average second-tier hit their obvious non-human signs around Pen or Hex; I’d come into mine early. They were significant; closer to Sajjpen than Flinpen, though largely internal. My entire body had been affected. I pressed a finger to the back of my hand and found the skin already cooling. Checked for a pulse and found none.

Various new inner workings ran through my frame. I sensed them as I did while in vehicle shape; my veins and arteries had been replaced by something like machinery; fragile devices of metal and glass. They shifted with me as I moved, automatically adjusting. I’d have to be careful not to break them.

“You can mostly pass.”

“Mostly?”

“Your insides are showing.” Reaching across, she tapped a fingernail above one of my eyebrows. It clinked on glass.

I let out a deep breath, felt for the spot in question and found the problem. Adjusting the gap wasn’t hard; just a matter of moving the other way, the way I used as a truck. Below the skin sat a fan of retractable lenses, presumably this universe’s equivalent of the lasers I’d had installed. Flinpen had been right. Second-tier had reduced the bridge between myself and at least one of my augments, and I’d had a lot of work done.

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Normally my heart would be beating fast, but my chest remained eerily still. There was no reason for it to bother me. I could do this. I’d had ten years to prepare me, after all. More than most operatives received.

“Better,” said Flinpen. She pulled me into a hug. “I know it’s not how you planned it, but you got here. Far fewer assassinations, except the outliers; it’s mostly placement work from here. After we’re done with quarantine.” She swayed a little. “I must be suggestible. Now I’m feeling sick.”

I pulled away quickly. “It’s the suns. You need to find a white spotlight outside and stand in it for a while.”

“Oh? You learnt a lot in a short space of time.”

“I think the Garrison has conducted inductions a few times.” Wiping at my eyes to clear them, I began picking at the glass pieces to scoop them into a pile. Everything felt untested, and I took it slow. “I’ll be okay, but the bad news is they can track me through the Interstice. You might have to come to me here.”

“Easy. What else is Fool’s Gold for?” She swayed again. “I think I need that spotlight.”

“I have to stay here,” I explained. “My life could depend on it. You said I could deliver summons at second-tier?”

Flinpen nodded. “Probably the best way. I’ll be in touch.”

She slipped out somewhat off-balance, form blurring into localised unfamiliarity, and I slid off the bed onto the ruins of the room. Surprisingly, no one had come to investigate the cacophony. Unfiltered sunlight radiated through the crack of the skylight rendering multiple shadows, and the lenses in my body shifted automatically in response.

Everything felt strange, not only my body. The Garrison’s imbued construct now lurked unobtrusively at the edge of my senses; something that could be pulled in and managed as needed. Beside it, just as intrinsic, lay the well of my own power. The size of the new container made it feel oddly small.

On the extrinsic front, I could sense Flinpen moving outside searching for a light bath to stand in. Other sources of versal magic dotted the complex, combining into a sort of background hum; a collection of mosquitos that when joined together made up a larger swarm.

Sweeping up more of the broken fragments, I finally turned my attention to the construct. Pulling it up was like flexing an intuitive muscle. It was indeed a computer-like interface, though unlike the version on Final Super Dokki World, not one I could strictly see. Rather, information presented itself in clear, concise chunks, along with the knowledge on how to access it.

This was versal magic standardised and refined on a communal level I’d never seen: mimicking the types of networks typical on many mid-to-advanced universes. The Chapel had always shied away from such connections, valuing distance and independence. I had to agree. It was a little discomforting to think I could be looked up at any time by any other participant with my information precisely detailed. On the other hand, however, the Garrison clearly hadn’t prepared for return surveillance.

I brought up my profile now, using a gesture to ease the transition. My name had been registered as Ti Du; homeworld, GIA. So the database didn't know everything. It must have been allocated manually. I saw my current universe and precise location, and the purpose of my current building; a healing centre. Notably missing was the fact that I’d trashed it.

I scanned out, reading the rest of the town. Most of it appeared to be residential, though the units were tiny; barely more than cubicles. The looming city towers marked observatories and weather stations, constantly providing and adjusting public light filtration. The lower floors of each tower also housed administrative functions, such as the one I’d come in by for registration.

I saw no shops or places of commerce, only ‘supply centres’ speaking to strict utilitarianism. Several expeditionary and martial outposts occupied positions around the city borders, staggered through a sweeping perimeter of lens-based artillery.

All of it paled in comparison to the centre: a huge, looming tower dwarfing its cousins on the periphery. The construct labelled it temple and palace, the seat of the empire.

And it was empty.

The Garrison wasn’t dying so much as already dead.

Its versal magic was highly refined, I gave it that. The database was impressive. But all of it was weak. The Vein held no practical candle to the Interstice; its only advantage being labels the Chapel could now also see. Its central universe – if it even controlled others – was hostile to its own inhabitants, and boasted only a single small city. Its members grew old and expired. I didn’t think they knew another House existed.

This was who we’d been worried about.

I felt sorry for them. Perhaps they’d been great once, but it must have been a long time back.

They did have techniques we could learn from. We could take them over without hostility, share our knowledge and combine into a single entity. We could offer the Garrison all the benefits they'd been missing. Everyone would win.

For the second time in my life – and the last several minutes – I actually felt my core trigger. I could sense it in general, when I looked for it, running as deep as the physical manifestations of Gear Shift in my veins. That was perhaps the most valuable change.

I still had no control over it.

Though I wondered what had been Missed.