I was in our home amongst the stars. Sitting in my home office, looking at a screen that reported the figures for the last run-through of a multi-channel game of doors session.

I watched as five billion years passed in a literal blink of an eye. Shifting the landscape, culture, and history of a newly formatted, newly added channel. With a press of a button and the assertion of my will, another broken world was remade and added to Uhrwerk’s architecture.

Uhrwerk’s separation from the true reality of Terminus earth was wide enough for me to have a fairly free reign when it came to manipulating the flow of its timestream.

Uhrwerk itself was built in such a way that making one channel’s time flow faster or slower than that of its pairs, without any regard to principles of relativity was an option. I could even reverse time up to a point. Though there were still some limits on reversing time and making changes.

New worlds were entered into the clockwork world’s structure every day. Kicked to our little department of the DPA by both the main DPA and their masters in the House of Antipodes. I’d predicted it would be so, but it was almost overwhelming how many worlds Margot and I had to process and reformat.

The Office of Cosmic Artifice had become the destination for every world that couldn’t be saved but could at least be recycled. Considering that precisely fifty percent of all those resources and power were destined to become me and Margot’s personal property I was actually starting to get a bit nervous that someone was going to do something stupid.

It was one thing to say one man’s trash was another man’s treasure but as treasure-hunters and mobsters throughout the cosmos could attest, turning garbage into gold could turn in bloody work real quick.

I’d at least expected to hear from the world government and have them offer to “renegotiate” some generous short term benefits in exchange for letting them fleece us in the long term, but no, thus far everything had been quiet and everyone was still keeping mum. It was kind of creepy, but it wasn’t anything Margot and I couldn’t handle.

Margot and I were basically keeping to ourselves even inside the office. We’d built a small pool of people that we trusted. The pool started with Tommy and a few others that we’d either vetted personally or invited on our own cognizance. This included Ashley, my friend Cassandra’s niece. The former Math Moth.

She never went back to the Heroes’ Guild after being forced into that death game by her superiors. Seeing the guild’s top brass cover for a sexual predator, who’d been preying on young hero cadets and sidekicks, while she got punished for whistleblowing with attacks against her good name and assignments that could only be described as low-key attempts on her life, had soured her on both the organization and the very idea of costumed heroes.

Thus she’d ended up moonlighting as a player, occasionally doing government gigs. I reached out through Cass, to let her know that I had some relatively safe, very well paying, work for the young woman if Ashley was available. I got a call back shortly afterwards and soon enough, after a bit of back and forth concerning the terms, team Kaylan got a new member.

We got another member a surprise gift from Director Dilan. It seemed Ms. Maci Redgrave had requested a transfer from the DPAA Office of Otherworld Observation. I don’t know why, but I knew enough to know it was something she’d planned as far as I could see it wasn’t part of some plot.

Director Dilan no doubt knew that Maci and I were friendly and no doubt intended to try and use my friend as an informant. Which is why I felt so confident about hiring her. While I’m sure the good Director had almost certainly created a profile on Maci to figure out what made the former fae-queen tick, I doubted any of it would be useful.

I suspected that not even Maci knew what made Maci Redgrave and she was the person in mention. Fae both were and weren’t highly unpredictable in terms of the way they thought, and the aos sidhe, the elder fae, like Maci, were even more so.

In which case, it’d likely come down to who she liked better and who could offer better benefits, and I was pretty sure that buddy beats boss any day, especially when one’s aforementioned buddy could offer you benefits equal to or greater than those the boss would be willing to offer.

I knew that this was assuming a lot. Including the assumption that Maci and I were actually friends and she wasn’t just playing some long con. However, I was willing to take that chance. Or rather, I was willing to appear to take that chance, while quietly setting up numerous measures to protect myself and my people from any potential fallout.

Just as was the case, for all my other hires.

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The door to my office opened. Margot popped her head in. Her radiant red hair falling moist from just coming out of the shower. Her silvery gray-green eyes shifting through ten thousand different shades of green and gray as power pulsed through them.

“Hey don’t forget!” said Margot.

“Of course, I won’t forget, babe. Just who do you think I am?!” I said. Patting my chest.

“Do you even remember what I’m talking about?” said Margot. Eyes narrowed at me.

“Er… Sure?” I said.

My mind was still buzzing with the details of the world on the screen in front of me, and my data-feed’s answer got lost amongst the noise.

“Your date...I’m talking about the date you’re supposed to go on today,” said Margot. Sounding slightly exasperated. Which was fair because I may, or may not, have spent the last few weeks postponing the matter for as long as I could.

“Oh...That. Are we sure I really need to go on this?”

“Yes, because I’d really like to be able to kiss my husband again without being us playing with fire,” said Margot. Sighing. Making it clear that she wasn’t any happier about the situation than I was.

“What about that plan to make a construct...Maybe I was too hasty in saying it wouldn’t work?” I said.

“Maybe, but I’ve done a little research of my own on the matter and something tells me that simply making a construct without a portion of one of our souls in it wouldn’t be enough. And making a construct that would be ‘alive’ enough for that to maybe work, would be a bit like us having a baby so that you can boink said baby, so that you can then turn around and boink me…”

“Ugh!” My expression turning to one of disgust as I imagined doing such a thing.

“Exactly…” said Margot. Her expression glum.

“Now go out there and there and do your best, love!... Before I die of wrist strain... ” said Margot. Whispering that last bit while looking to the side.

“Huh?” I said. One brow raised.

“Anyway, I’m gonna go get dressed, since I’ve got work to do and shows to watch...You go out there and knock ‘em dead, honey,” said Margot. Disappearing just as suddenly as she’d come.

I sighed as I watched her go. Wishing she’d stayed and bantered some more so I could put off getting ready for my date. Since wishes weren’t fishes and simply wanting things to be different would do no good, I eventually dragged my lazy behind out of my seat, snapped my fingers so that I looked a little snazzier, with my hair cut and combed, and my clothes changed to something more suitable for a date.

Then I teleported to the restaurant that Margot chose for me as a first date setting.