We didn’t go far. Still in Lima, to look at it, arriving on the streets near a busy courtyard. The texture of worn cobblestones penetrated my shoes and irritated my feet, while crowds were out on the road in force with bright phones and headlamps. The atmosphere was eerily charged, strangers moving from group to group sharing gossip.

Almost no one was working in the aftermath of the solar blip except for a few restaurant staff straining under the weight of the people descending upon them for refreshments. By the looks of it, several had started to turn people away. Every so often someone would glance at the darkened street lights, not yet adjusted for the new schedule, and chatter to their companions.

The haze only heightened the sense of strangeness. Moonlight filtered through the mist, along with the dotted glows cast by bobbing devices every few metres. Approaching shadows resolved into people out of the gloom, only to fade back into obscurity seconds later on passing. I had the sense the whole scene was somehow teetering on the edge of something larger than any individual part. All it would take was a push in the right direction.

A low stone fence coated in chipping stucco bordered the road and Durga sat on it, expelling the air from her lungs in one long exhalation. “So this is what Lucifer gets up to in his spare time. Casual investigations into the nature of the universe.”

“Among other things.”

“I should compare notes. Still, I feel sorry for those poor people caught up in whatever he’s planning.”

I took up the spot next to her, leaning rather than sitting, the rough surface of the wall rasping against my fingers. “Don’t be. Lucy knows what he’s doing.”

“They signed a contract. We should tell them. They should know what they’re getting themselves into.”

“For all I know, Lucy might just be sick of hanging out with children. Why let prejudice ruin their only realistic chance for an afterlife?”

She shook her head. “That’s not the point. They should be given the choice.”

“You and I both know what they’re going to say. Thousands of years of indoctrination will do that to a community.” I wagged a finger at her. “Some would also say you aren’t the expert on freedom of choice you claim to be.”

She shot me a sour look. “That’s a low blow, and you know it.”

I actually paused. “Force of habit. On the upside, anyone who doesn’t inspire occasional moments of crushing disappointment is definitely hiding something.”

“There are good people out there, you know.”

“Give it time.”

A dozen or so people strolled by, chattering excitedly in raised voices as they headed into the public square. The words ‘Messiah’ and ‘Vatican’ were among them.

Something big indeed. I touched a hand to my chest, willing the hole in it to heal to no effect.

“What’s going on, Loki?” Durga asked. She grasped her dupatta and lowered the fabric from her hair where it clumped around her shoulders. If anything, the additional years from her injury made her seem more imposing than before; a more convincing representation of her true authority and no less beautiful for it. “You know something. Why did you bring me here?”

Another woman strode past, lambasting someone on the other end of a phone call. I warped over, plucked it out of her fingers and sent her to the front of one of the lengthy restaurant queues before she had time to react.

“We’re experiencing technical difficulties,” I said into the device, interrupting the equally angry voice mid-stream as I returned to the wall.

“What? Who are –”

“Can’t talk, need to fix the sun. Enjoy the temporary workaround.” Ending the call, I made a quick check for active biometric security and slid my new phone into a pocket.

Durga stared at me in naked disapproval. “That’s not set up on the company system.”

“You could fix this,” I reminded her with a grin. “Talk to Vishy. Say Odin’s phone was destroyed in the fight. For that matter, tell them he wants a full security reset at the executive level, given the severity of the breach. You know Vishnu. If you could convince him you were consolidated this whole time, this should be no problem. Besides,” I added, giving the pocket a pat, “I have certain additional plans.”

Speaking for myself, I didn’t want to hang around the C-Suite any longer than I had to. Too much information I was supposed to know and didn’t. Durga, on the other hand, knew more than she was supposed to, a far preferable state of affairs.

“I can handle Vish,” she agreed. “It’s Yahweh I’m worried about. He’ll know. He always knows. He’ll realise the security system wasn’t interfered with. And we have one less person supporting the pact now. If it can’t hold up –”

I thought it would hold. Apollo’s absence weakened our protection, it was true, but dry technical issues were going to be far less noticeable than Yahweh’s mortal representative hosting an unsanctioned summoning of his sworn enemy.

“It’ll be fine. But back to your question. It’s another side of Siphon,” I explained, and filled her in on my last conversation with Yun-Qi. “That monitoring software on the computers I brought up earlier - it came from here. Since we were talking system access, it seemed relevant.”

“Those are two different things. Unless – oh.”

“‘Oh’ is right,” I agreed. “It’s Providence. The ‘framework controlling the universe?’ It’s us. I’d stake Eris’ posture issues on it.”

“They’re hacking our souls?”

“That, or Providence itself. The task system’s been acting up here and there for a while. Chances are good we just found the cause.”

Durga’s eyebrows rose as I explained my theory.

“To think computers could defeat the combined might of the heavens,” she sighed once I was done. “Well, it’s obvious where they’re getting the power from.”

“It puts runic magic to shame, really.” I tried to stretch my arms out without pulling at my wound. “We’ve got a whole alphabet to work with, yet we’re starting to lose out to clever arrangements of ones and zeroes.”

My companion gently backhanded me across the head. “I mean the souls, Loki. The stolen ones. That’s why they needed them. I may not be a computer expert, but I’m certain technology on its own can’t do it.”

She had a point. If it hadn’t been for Yun-Qi’s recent insistence Xiānfēng had nothing to do with the thefts, I would have agreed. “Possibly.”

The irritable phoneless woman had been making her back towards us, now even angrier, scouring the area for potential culprits. Her gaze wandered over the pair of us uncertainly a couple of times before she seemed to make up her mind and began to approach. Before she could open her mouth, I elongated a finger and poked her back to the restaurant queue.

Durga studiously ignored the gesture. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“I’m not sure yet. But it seems likely Siphon – the other Siphon, not Xiānfēng – will be able to fill in the blanks. I should pay them a visit anyway. Even with all these distractions going on, chances are Themis is closing in. We need to get to them first.”

Durga’s brows knitted. “They’re in Singapore, aren’t they? How will you get past the lockdown?”

“I’ll figure something out. And I’m not so sure they are. Not entirely.”

“Because of the schism?”

“Probably. In any case, they’re a rogue element. That makes them interesting.”

“You should be careful. If they’re stealing souls, who knows what they could do with that kind of power?”

I shrugged, holding up a hand full of sprouting claws. “If anyone asks me to plug a tiara into my head, I have a few pointy friends I can introduce them to.”

Except the body I’d left behind in Singapore hadn’t had a head full of holes. It wasn’t like Themis to miss details, and she’d written me off as one of Siphon’s victims regardless. Even if the device was responsible, I doubted it was the only ace up their sleeve. It was possible someone was helping them. Someone who knew their way around souls. And just how were they getting access to their targets, anyway?

“Loki. At least talk to Yun-Qi. Find out what they’re capable of.”

A strange expression twisted across her face a moment later. I watched as she dug under the fabric of her sari, pulling forth a thin gold chain. A familiar gold earring dangled from the necklace.

“Here,” she said, snapping the chain. “This might help. It’s not really mine to hold onto.”

I accepted the artifact, rolling it over in my fingers. Unlike Lucy’s spear, it was almost invisible to my senses; only noticeable if I was specifically looking. Odin’s surviving ring was easier to spot by comparison, which probably had more to do with pantheon affinity than raw power. Very Athena; by all accounts she’d been partial to subtlety and finesse. Still, I could feel a definite catch there, and nudged it experimentally.

Cascades of gold chains exploded out of the earring, the force of the transformation knocking it out of my hand onto the cobblestones in a fountain of metal clinks.

A snort sounded next to me. The next thing I knew, Durga was handing it back, the chains gone and replaced with the earring once more. For the first time since Apollo’s death, she was smiling. Only a little, but it was there. “It takes practice.”

“Noted,” I said drily, handing it back. “You hold onto it. If things go south, you’ve got the best chance of getting past uncooperative defences.”

“When I get past their defences, they’ll have bigger things to worry about than having their powers suppressed,” Durga stated. “Besides, Odin wouldn’t pass up a chance for a war trophy.”

True. In the absence of an obvious way to open the band, I held it up and reformed my ear around it instead, then shifted it away for safekeeping.

“I’m not sure if I should be relieved or concerned,” the warrior goddess asked. “Where do your clothes go when you do that?”

“No idea. Where do your weapons go?”

“I always assumed they went to the same place as my sisters.” She sighed. “But I don’t think they’re… there, anymore. And yet –” A small crude knife appeared in her hand, tinted with a faint hint of iridescent green. “Not that it matters. We operate this way because someone, somewhere, wanted us to. What I wouldn’t give for a way to infiltrate their system.”

I had no answer for that one. I’d had no part in creating the universe and wouldn’t have trusted my memories even if I had. My recollection of the past was crystal clear, but comparatively late. I’d been born the usual way, at least by mortal standards, with parents and siblings. Grown up through childhood, albeit one somewhat less spatially-anchored than people from most dimensions were used to. Gone through the usual jötnar teething phases of too many eyes, legs or, well, teeth. Usually, you could tell jötnar children apart from adults by how far they deviated from Aesir-mandated standard, though that hadn’t stopped the Aesir from looking down their noses at the adult population as well.

I often wondered if it was my time with the Aesir which had warped my children’s ability to shapeshift; if Odin’s agents had slipped something into my mead one night as a future contingency. Perhaps even before I’d had any thoughts beyond re-establishing diplomatic relations between our two peoples. Certainly long before the incident with Baldr, the final nail in the coffin. It was the kind of thing Odin would have done; crippling an enemy before they knew they were one. Yet another way prophecy kept coming back to ruin my life. But I’d long resigned myself to not knowing.

Staring at the shiv in my companion’s hand as she flipped it back and forth, it twigged that I’d seen it before. Recently. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Mmm. Adamantine. Greek.” Flip. “There’s very little of that substance left anymore.” Another flip.

“They’re asking for it back,” I remarked.

Flip. “Of course they are. They’ll want to destroy it.” She didn’t say the name, but a distinct image of Hera swam into my mind. Whether it was because she’d surmised the iron-fisted CFO was behind the order or a potential next victim was less clear.

“It occurs to me,” I said carefully, eyes on the knife, “we have access to a replicating device. Hypothetically-speaking, someone could turn it in and still have it available for extenuating circumstances.”

Durga caught the knife firmly between her fingers, bringing its dance to a close. “Come to think of it, I could also copy my pass. It won’t get you behind the management paywall, but it will take you almost everywhere else. It’ll have to tide you over until the executive reset.”

“It’s a start,” I admitted. “Although you’re going to have to come clean about that injury. Tell them your boss did it when he went turncoat.”

She pulled an appalled face. “Aside from the fact he wouldn’t, it galls me to think the office might believe he bested me in combat.”

“Come on,” I protested. “It’s Shitface.” The word felt odd on my lips, somehow. It occurred to me it had been a while since I’d used it. “Being better at everything than everybody is what he does. Remind them of that a little and they’ll be too busy being thankful he’s gone to worry about you. Besides,” I added. “Only one of you made it out alive, and it wasn’t him.”

I wasn’t sure when the knife had vanished, but sure enough, it was gone.

“They’ll be expecting you back for more appointments,” Durga said. She leant back on the wall, chin turned up towards the sky. Beyond her, Phoneless stormed towards us, rage contorting her features as she double-timed it across the cobblestones. “Whatever you do, don’t take too long.”

I pulled the phone from my pocket and waved it at Phoneless, who swore, put her head down and charged in the best minotaur impression I’d seen since the real deal. “Buy me time. Or better yet, access. I’ll see what I can do.”