All credit to Themis – the Greek goddess of justice had beaten me to the punch. Too bad it had turned out to be on the receiving end.

With the resources of one of Providence’s entire departments at her disposal, I should have expected she’d get there first. I doubted Themis would have deviated from her assigned mission even in the light of everything else going on.

After the way she’d antagonised me at the office this week, I’d have expected to feel a little smug at the poetic justice of the situation. Instead, all I could think about was how Siphon had taken out three high-ranking gods without any sign of a struggle.

Quil from Security, who’d also made clear his membership to the Let’s Pick On Loki Brigade, was currently drooling out of his mouth like a baby, his normally imposing presence reduced to, well, this. I almost felt a little sorry for him. Nuja, one of Compliance’s trackers, leaned on his shoulder (away from the drool), her once-mercurial tattoos now lifeless and inert. Their hearts continued to thump in their chests, still rising and falling imperceptibly. But there was no one home.

Now that I was practically on top of them, I could feel it: the absence of souls where some should have been. And in the background, so faint it might have been my imagination, something else.

“I don’t think you understand the severity of the situation,” Balding was arguing down the phone, drawing my attention back towards him. He retrieved what looked like a thumb drive from the drawer and held it up for examination. “This was an unscheduled appointment. We need to get someone in here now, before any others arrive. I’m archiving the collateral now, and once I’m done I’ll be packing up and leaving.”

I sharpened my hearing until the woman’s voice on the other end came through loud and clear. From her accented English, I picked her for being from China, probably in her senior years. Her drawled syllables had the sound of someone who’d experienced an unceremonious awakening at an inopportune time. “You’ll do no such thing,” she admonished him. “This is the safest location for you by far. And have you considered that if the situation is as serious as you claim, then moving the excess might provide their friends with an identifiable trail?”

Given I was currently eavesdropping on those exact plans, she wasn’t wrong. Although I wouldn’t have called myself Themis’ friend by any measure.

“I’ll take them to the backup,” Balding insisted. “But we can’t have patients lying around the place in full view. I need a collection, now.”

“Louis,” the woman responded, in the tone of someone who was having their patience tested, “it can wait a few hours. All our people are either asleep or on call already dealing with the larger situation. The program did exactly what it was meant to, and your alert has been noted. But realistically, while we remain cut off we have limited resources to evacuate. Not to mention limited mobility. What use would it be if we took someone off a critical job only for them to be stopped by the law for breaking lockdown? Your paranoia is admirable, but in this case the best thing you can do is sit tight and await further direction. The program will keep you safe. Try to get some sleep. In the morning, we’ll have someone take a look at the assets and determine what to do from there.”

The program? It could have been referring to a schedule, but given their connection with hacking… My eyes turned to the screen still blocked by Louis’ body and shelving. I knew better than to step further into the room, but a few extra eyestalks hovering above my head solved that particular problem.

It wasn’t the same application as Canciana’s, but it was similar. The interface was cleaner, with fewer tiles, and they appeared to be more refined. Modified, perhaps. Unlike the version Lucy’s consultants were looking into, it displayed a range of dynamic activity. One window showed a flowchart composed of grid-like connections. Several glowing toggles were lit at the nexus points with the rest greyed out. The chart currently centred on one particular node ringed in luminous gold.

A form had popped up in a window next to it. [Three results found,] read the header. This was followed by a column of three short timestamps. Balding had clicked on one and expanded an editor where he’d written, ‘Unknown male: Hostile and uncooperative,” with no further explanation. Below it sat a half-visible photo of Quil against one of the steel benches, his dark eyes glazed as they stared unseeing into the distance.

On the left side of the screen, a lot more was happening. The window there took up half the screen and showed a feed of text vomiting down the screen. Words appeared in it in fits and starts, sometimes spewing out whole paragraphs at a time and emitting only a few at others, if at all.

I backtracked a few lines and read it.

[Where are you?] the text demanded, before starting a new line. [I know you’re watching.]

All the hairs on my arms stood on end, both in Singapore and my body back at the penthouse.

[Don’t think I don’t know what this is,] it continued, in harsh grey letters. [I don’t know how you got hold of a soul jar, but you are in for a world of hurt once we catch you. I will personally see to it you receive the most painful, protracted, exquisitely torturous –] this went on for some time, [ – demotion available, and you will never see your desk again. I hope the knowledge eats at you in your last hours of freedom –]

Several factors became obvious at this point.

First, it was definitely Quil doing the ranting. Second, he had to be either inside the computer itself or something connected to it. I’d never heard of a computer being converted into a soul repository before, but if they could run constructs as complex as Providence’s systems I didn’t see why it wouldn’t be possible. Third, Quil seemed to assume he was addressing a Providence employee. Either that was arrogance, or he might have known something. I couldn’t be sure.

I also wanted to know how they’d done it, and thought I knew who might have an idea. It seemed I was overdue for another chat with more than one of my children.

Louis shook his head as he plugged the drive into a port on the computer, Quil’s silent raving going unnoticed. “We’ve been lucky so far,” he professed. “But these people –”

“Not people,” the woman replied. “Don’t let yourself get sucked in by their appearance. The program doesn’t lie. These are ancient forces. Concepts personified. Their minds work very differently to ours.”

“To yours, maybe,” I mentioned uncharitably, to no reaction.

Louis seemed like he wanted to steer clear of that line of conversation as well. “I’m aware,” he said dryly. “Fine. I’ll stay here overnight. Ah, day. Still no official word on what’s happening to the calendar.”

The woman’s voice sounded grim. “That’s why we’re here. We must be a beacon of hope for humanity. The entities think they can frighten us with their conspicuous tricks, but we are the vanguard and will not be broken.”

“Right,” said Louis, not sounding convinced. He wiped his brow and peered down at the computer where Quil was still composing his magnum opus. “Leave it with me.” He put down the phone without waiting for a response and let out a sagging sigh filling his whole body. “Right,” he said again. “No collection.” Pushing his chair back, he surveyed the room, eyes sweeping past my position and lingering on the three empty gods. He wore bifocal glasses; the ravages of age starting to eat away at more than just his hair. For a moment I thought he might get up and approach, but instead he turned back to the monitor.

[Answer me, you filth,] Quil was saying on screen.

This time, it didn’t go unnoticed. Louis let out another sigh, and clicked over to the other tile.

[Let’s try this again,] he typed into the editor. [What is your name?]

A long pause followed the insertion.

[Well, look who’s finally showing themselves,] Quil eventually sneered, his tone obvious despite the complete lack of embellishment or emphasis visible in the plain grey letters.

[What is your name?] Louis asked again.

[Oh, that’s rich,] Quil replied. [Are they getting a lackey to do their dirty work for them? I want to speak to your sponsor. The bright spark whose idea it was to create this little setup. You know, it took us barely any time to find you. When they realise we’re missing, you’ll be lucky if your head gets smeared across five city blocks of your wretched country.]

Between Themis and Apollo, the tyrant’s eventual reaction was bound to be a spectacle. And Vishnu – I frowned. Did he already realise what was going on here? Through a sheer ridiculous chain of cause and effect, the Chief Operations Officer had just lost two of his primary underlings in the space of a day. From his perspective, it would no doubt look like a personal ambush with Odin as prime suspect number one. No wonder he was acting out. All that deflection I’d put in at the boardroom might have just been sent back to square one.

[Answer the questions and we’ll let you out,] typed Louis in what I felt sure had to be a lie. [What is your name?]

[You’re a disgrace,] Quil responded. [If you think I’m going to tell you anything –]

It couldn’t be just a soul jar. They were traps, but not complete suppressants – I’d seen it with my own eyes just a couple of days earlier with Tru. Given the nature of his confinement, Quil, the Incan pantheon’s resident lightning god, was well-positioned to wreak havoc on his prison. Depending on what it connected to, possibly Singapore’s entire electrical grid. There weren’t too many opportunities for a lightning specialist to cut loose in the modern world, but I couldn’t argue with their effectiveness against electronics. Crushing a cage you still happened to be inside wasn’t the smartest move, but it was survivable, and I couldn’t imagine someone as short-tempered as Quil wouldn’t have tried.

No, there was likely something else going on here.

A soft but distinct knock on the wall nearby interrupted my observations: Regina, checking in. Unfortunately it also got Louis’ attention, the doctor pausing mid-keystroke to cock his ear in my direction. Having the equivalent of three corpses in your office would make most people twitchy.

As he rose from his seat I ducked back through to the vending machine sanctuary just in time to see Regina knock again. She noticed me halfway through the action, but it was too late, her knuckles completing their hazardous trajectory.

“Shouldn’t have done that,” I warned her. “Someone was home. You may need to get ready to run.”

“You were taking so long,” she whispered back, boggling somewhat at my halo of additional eyes. “Uh. And I didn’t hear anything.”

I kicked myself. I’d been wandering around with my senses boosted for long enough now that I’d already adjusted to a new normal. Of course she wouldn’t hear it.

When I came back through the wall, I emerged through Louis Ngai, who had stopped where I’d stood previously, ear resting not quite against the wall as he tried to identify the source of the knock. For a brief moment our souls overlapped, giving me a short window into his. I’d recognise it again. Tired, mainly, and stressed, followed by sudden shock as it realised something unusual was happening to it. I stepped back again immediately, but the damage had been done. If the knock hadn’t been enough to raise his suspicions, this definitely would. The one saving grace was that he’d be unlikely to place my specific identity.

Although with Siphon, it was hard to know how much information they had access to.

I extended a single eyestalk back into the lab, higher this time. Louis had moved back a few steps. “No,” he muttered, moving towards his desk. Sweat beaded on his brow, even under the influence of the building’s air conditioning. “Red alert.” Reaching under a desk, he pressed a hidden button. No alarms sounded, but judging by Louis’ reaction this was expected.

I nodded at Regina, tensed and waiting on the other side of the wall. “You should run.”

Regina glanced awkwardly at Neetu, still stationed by the door.

“In physical breach, extend containment field,” Louis muttered to himself, reaching for his mouse even as Quil continued to spew out words on the screen. I didn’t have time to read them. I was willing to bet this containment field was responsible for the three soul thefts in the room and wasn’t about to stick around to discover its workings first-hand.

“Trust me, this is way more dangerous than it looks from this angle,” I insisted, retracting the eyes and towing Regina towards the door. “Either you start sprinting now or you learn what it’s like to be eaten by a machine. I don’t know if they’d discriminate much between you and me and I don’t think you’ll want to find out.”

“What the hell?” Regina asked in a normal voice. Neetu glanced at her sharply. “Fine. We’re going.”

“About time,” said the sergeant. “With any luck, they’ll never know we were ever here.”

“I think that ship’s sailed,” Regina observed. Her eyes widened, and she glanced back in the direction of the lab. “Oh. That entity. It’s –”

I didn’t wait, warping us both a block distant. We stood under the shade of a park tree, eerily devoid of other visitors. “Is it getting bigger?” I asked.

Regina blinked at me. “I think so. Wait, no - it’s stopped. And it’s over… there.” She turned to face our departure point, then glared back at me. “You abandoned your friend.”

“I told you to run,” I pointed out. “Three times. You weren’t fast enough, so I took matters into my own hands. Neetu will just have to find her own way out. If you text her our location it’ll help. More importantly, I just prevented us becoming poorly-rendered ASCII art.”

Or at least me. Louis’ phone buddy had been correct. If I was right about their machine, his lab was one of the safest places for him to bunker down.

The calm quietness of a city unused to low decibel levels descended upon us, confused birdsong filling the air as its avian residents adjusted to a new sleep schedule. It didn’t look like the site of a world-changing cataclysm, but that only added to its efficacy. The worst threats were usually the ones you didn’t see coming.

“I want to know what’s going on,” Regina demanded, digging around in her pockets for her phone. “If you want me to keep helping you, the least you can do is tell me how much danger I’m in.”

“You were already in danger,” I reminded her, sliding into a cross-legged position under the tree trunk. Largely for show, since I couldn’t actually touch it in my current state. “If you look at it from my point of view, you’ve been in danger since the moment you were expelled into the world kicking and screaming. Of course, what we’re facing now is a bit more immediate, and if you have any sense you’ll realise that having me as your best friend is very much in your continued interests.”

“Funny, then, because all of this only started happening after you showed up.”

“You approached me,” I observed with a shrug. “And a good thing you did. This is much worse than I thought.”

“What is?”

It was starting to come together. The soul theft, the computers, and what I’d witnessed in the lab. Somehow, Siphon had created a computer program capable of generating Louis’ ‘containment field’. Judging by its position, it had seemed to be sourced from the computer itself. To take out one of Providence’s strike teams – headed by Themis, no less – all three must have been taken by surprise. Most likely they’d done what I’d narrowly avoided, and walked into range of the field. However it worked, it must have been near-instant.

I was betting it only worked on gods. Ngai had been fine, after all, although it was possible Siphon had also developed some way to key immunity into specific people. If Neetu made it out of the building in one piece, that would give me my answer.

As for people like Regina, bridging the gap between mortal and divine, I had no way of knowing what kind of effect it would have. Perhaps nothing. As my only link into bubble country, however, she was too valuable to risk.

She’d also probably saved my life. In a figurative sense.

If it was hardware we were dealing with, that would be one thing. But software – that could be replicated on any system anywhere in the world. How many machines had it already been installed on, ready to be activated? And with a route into Providence’s task manager, there was every chance the office was already full of anti-god bombs waiting to go off, at least at the Helpdesk level.

But Xiānfēng, even its Siphon renegades, had been trained by Fenrir. They’d know they couldn’t just launch an attack against the gods without it being picked up in advance. Hence their slow, careful targeting, picking us off one by one. Except it hadn’t been enough. Computing, with its rapid growth, was one of the few areas divinity didn’t yet have a stranglehold on. No such thing as a god of computers, after all. It hadn’t been monitored as strictly as it could have. But time and accumulated knowledge let Providence catch up, as it always did. Xiānfēng and Siphon had always been on an invisible clock.

With IT under his remit, Odin had to have known about this. I wondered if he’d been the one to point Themis in the right direction. The way he’d rounded on Apollo, I wondered if it had been his plan all along to send his peer into the shark’s nest. Cut the legs out from under Vishnu, who was already unstable enough, and through him sow enough discord into the executive team to provide an unchallenged path to the throne. All with a squeaky clean scapegoat to pin the blame on. It was exactly how he operated.

Even after he was gone, his plans carried on doing his dirty work for him.

Providence’s best seer was now gone. Siphon had an opening, even if they didn’t realise it yet. By cutting off Singapore, Themis had effectively quarantined the local threat, but the question was how far it had already spread. Tru had mentioned Louis had accounts in five countries.

And there was still the original Xiānfēng and Canciana’s headset, which Siphon clearly didn’t need to achieve their ends. Was it related, or something different? A variant?

Appealing though it was, leaving Siphon to ravage the tyrant’s crew would be insanity. Providence might have been slave drivers, but they kept at least some of us in working condition. Siphon discriminated even less. No doubt they believed themselves on the right side of history, taking the world back for humanity.

It was just one more lie. Eliminating us would lock the world into an eternity in the void more surely than any oppressor; mortal victory the artificer of its own condemnation. It would open up a new era, sure. But hardly for the better.

Plus I wasn’t keen on having my soul stuffed into an inanimate object. Just a minor incentive, there.

A small figure about Neetu’s size appeared in the distance around the corner of a building, making its way hurriedly towards us. I looked up at Regina, held out my palm and grinned. “Still think of yourself as a guardian? How would you like to save the world?”

Well. Give or take.