Looking out over the village that was being used as a corporate military encampment, I tried to parse what my eyes were telling me. It looked as if the mental concepts of the vast majority of mercenaries were meshing together to form some kind of symbiotic mental structure that overlaid the entire camp.

  I couldn't tell who, in particular, was part of that combined mental image. Which was unfortunate because I was fairly certain that the memetic idea caused this effect, and it would be nice to differentiate between those who were affected and those who weren’t.

  The image being represented in the conceptualization was an inverse of a yin-yang symbol. Instead of two intertwined concepts, it was two concepts that could not be found within each other. There were wisps of other ideas on the periphery of the symbol, but they refused to form, or perhaps weren’t ready to be realized yet.

  “So, where do I go to find my saboteurs?” I asked Aisling, who was crouched beside me, wrapped in one of her cloaks that made her hard to look at. I also had one on, as a precaution for what I was about to do next.

  “That building right there,” she said, pointing to one of the village houses. That was odd because the military had its own prefabricated structures. Did they convince the rural villagers to provide sanctuary?

  Whatever, I’d figure out the situation once I was in there. Trying to pull information from the symbiotic mental cloud was like trying to read a book by riffling through the pages like it was a flipbook. I’d have to spend some time working with it before I figured out how to work it properly. Just like learning to use my Aspect in the first place.

  “Alright, be back in a sec. Let Makesi know where I am if he wakes up before I return,” I told her and took off towards the house. Aisling made a quiet noise that could possibly be interpreted as a protest at my actions. I chose to interpret it differently.

  A path down the hill formed before me along the route I was taking. On the way down, I felt another presence join me on the way, close enough that if I leaned to the side, I would run into her.

  “So nice of you to finally join us. At such a convenient time, too, right when I left the others. It’s almost as if you don’t want to meet them,” I told the fox, her white tail battering my arm at the comment.

  “Who’s to say, maybe I was busy handling matters of import,” she replied, her tone utterly innocent.

  “Right, whatever, you’re welcome to come along as you won’t get caught,” I replied. For whatever reason, unlike Aurin, I couldn’t shove her off stage. She just existed whether either of us wanted her to or not. In exchange, from what I could sense her range limit was much further than Aurin’s. Who was waiting back with Vivi and Makesi at the moment, the one hundred metre range having extended to five hundred with my Stat increase.

  I wasn’t looking forward to introducing her to Xinyu, even though I knew she wouldn’t mind. There was just something off about it in my mind.

  “Oh, don’t worry, darling, I’m only seen when I allow it,” she replied with a titter that almost sounded like a series of yips. A shiver passed through me at her word choice.

  Glancing towards her, a vulpine smile sat on her lips while she stared at me. When our eyes met, a ripple went through the muscles on her body, and her ears twitched, while the smile was wiped off her face. I didn’t care that I was affecting her, because she was the one who signed up for this. Who was I to shield her from the results of her own choices?

  The rest of the walk down to the village, she was silent. As we made our way towards the patrolled perimeter, the world around us seemed to warp, distance lost importance and cover conveniently blocked sightlines to me. A comforting hum went through my legs as they rearranged the world to make the trip easier.

  Xinyu seemed to slide through space, her strides carrying her beside me through the warped reality.

  Despite the house being near the centre of the village next to the market area, we ran into it right near the edge. A soldier leaning by the door and smoking was staring off into the distance, the changes seemingly unnoticed by him.

  Walking up to the door, when I stopped and nodded to him, he dropped his cigarette, and his mental model of a truck driving down a superhighway dropped to a screeching stop. His hand automatically moved to open the door, only for his brain to catch up to the action, where he froze again.

  I helped him out, and with a nudge, had him finish pushing the door open so we could step inside. Xinyu giggled at his response, which felt a little hypocritical given her own reaction to meeting my eyes a few minutes ago.

  Voices came from inside the house as someone spoke with fervent passion, “If we’re going to keep routing safety concerns laterally instead of up the official chain, then we need a representative who actually answers to us, not the Office. We are going to form our own workers’ council, a union independent of—ma'am!”

  Walking in through the entrance corridor, we were met with a group of people sitting in a circle in the living room in fold-out chairs like some sort of support group meeting. One of the informants that I had planted was leading the meeting, but I could not remember her name for the life of me. More importantly, there was something about her that seemed to hold more… narrative importance? That was the best way I could put it. It was as if her role had not only transformed her mind but also her inherent self’s presence in reality.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  I would have to explore that later, though, as there were more important things to discuss and standing here staring at her was starting to get awkward.

  “Right, I heard something about forming a union. I like that, but I have a few ideas if you want to actually achieve anything,” I said, pulling an empty chair from the side of the room up to the circle and sitting down on it.

  As soon as I was settled, it felt like a collective breath was let out of the room. The authority effect that was being broadcast from my legs turned off when I was no longer standing. Xinyu hopped into my lap in the form of a small white fox. I didn’t see her shift, but she must have.

  My hand unconsciously went to pet her, and she let out a soft murring sound.

  “But before that, give me a breakdown of the situation here. What are we working with? What’s our exposure to management like?” I asked, leaning over to steal a smoke from the person next to me, who was stock-still in the middle of taking one out for themselves. With a snap of my fingers, my Venust lit the tip, pulling thematically on my action.

  “Who the fuck are—” one of the soldiers started asking, only to be interrupted when my informant shot him a death glare.

  “No, no, don’t be like that. It was a fair question. To put it simply, I’m the reason you aren’t going to be put in the ground by a corpo union busting operation,” I replied, taking a drag from the cigarette before continuing. The closed-door meeting space should always be a smoky room; this was rule one of secret clubs. “Think of me as the anomaly to match the one acting as your commander.”

  “You gonna be snatching our bodies whenever you need a new one?” one of the members of the union drive asked.

  “Nope, if I die I'm dead,” I replied, leaving the fact that I didn't need to seize their bodies when I had already seized their minds. “Now start from the beginning. Basically, what's the end goal here, what are the steps you're taking to achieve it, and how were you planning on offing your commander for good?”

  After a moment of uncomfortable shuffling, one of the men spoke up, “We have no idea how to deal with Commander Zhou.”

  “Great, that’ll be my job then. You can handle the rest,” I replied, successfully ridding myself of all responsibility that I would otherwise have foisted onto my lap. I leaned back, signalling I was done talking.

  Xinyu let out a snicker that sounded far too human for her fox body.

  The conversation continued into the mechanics of exactly how the workers’ council was going to get the rest of the Office’s workforce on board. With the memetic sickness going around, this was fairly easy because the infiltrators I had recruited had ensured the spread to the entire officer corps already.

  While she spoke, I examined what was going on with the role I had installed in the informant leading the meeting. It looked to me like tendrils had spread from the mental space out into the environment around her. Whenever she spoke or reacted, those tendrils would gently shift to alter the room, pulling people’s expressions to match a response that would fit her role. It didn’t look like anyone noticed the effect, even though it was far from subtle.

  In fact, it was nearly theatrical how it changed the room.

  The plan concluded with an action that was scheduled to take place tonight. Given that the overlap was gone, there was no reason for the Office branch to remain here. They would be leaving, having failed their primary objective, but taking credit for restoring reality to normality. Given that I would own this branch of the Office by the end of the day, I didn’t mind their misassociation of credit.

  Their plan was reasonable, if scaled smaller than my final goal. But this was only our first step. They would eventually be pushed into conflict with Eightfold as a whole through their mere existence.

  When the meeting ended, I stood up and gave one last nod to the assembled rebels, their heads lowered as the weight of my authority settled over them. With that, I took off, walking out through a window that became a doorway as I moved towards it. I wanted to get a look at Commander Zhou’s residence so I could complete my role.

  Walking through the streets with the intention of not being seen, I found alleyways and pathways that wrapped around me until I found myself standing before the building where I originally killed Commander Zhou. The reason for my trip here was to set up the environment where Zhou could be killed for good, looking for an item from The Stream.

  A space where Zhou is incapable of hopping bodies when killed within.

  The cost was over ten thousand Dust to make a single room where I could kill him without jumping bodies. Maybe I needed to be more specific?

  A space that would contain Zhou after killed.

  That gave an error labelled ‘Specified outcome is enforced by baseline causality,’ which I think meant an anomaly wasn’t needed because that would already happen. That didn’t make sense to me, unless the System considered Zhou to be the body he left behind? Should I contain the sword then?

  “Having an issue with your plan?” Xinyu asked, while she leaned in far too close for comfort. I backed away a few steps before responding.

  “Just looking for a way to prevent Zhou from jumping to one of his subordinates when he dies. I'm sure I'll find something I can afford, just give me a minute.”

  “Okay, it seems fairly simple to me, but you do you,” she replied, then took a seat on a ledge that I could have sworn wasn’t there a moment ago.

  “You can’t just say something like that and not explain,” I said, crossing my arms as I sat next to her. Half my mind was listening while the other continued searching for a solution that didn’t involve her.

  “All you’d have to do is sever the threads,” Xinyu said, pointing at the commander’s office where thousands of lines were now visible, connecting to what looked like every soldier under his control.

  I tried searching for a way to sever karmic threads, but the costs were all way too high. Yet Xinyu could do it for free… or, well, not free, but it wouldn’t cost any Dust.

  “Ugh, fine, what do you want for your help?” I groaned while burying my head in my hands.

  “What else could I want? I need a way to advance my cultivation.” Her arm wrapped around my shoulder as she pulled me in close. “When the threads are cut, the remainder has to settle somewhere. I want Zhou’s sword.”

  I let out a sigh, then made my way back to the hovercraft. Another karmic thread bound me to Xinyu. Whether that would matter later, I couldn’t say.

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