Jason and Gary sat, side by side, on a porch swing. Mist wetted the trees growing from the sides of the ge, filling the air with the st of the leaves. Jason was still, gathering his thoughts, while Gary shifted in anticipation of long-awaited answers. The leonid was not tall for his kind, yet he loomed over Jason. Even so, it was the smaller man’s presehat seemed overwhelming. This was Jason’s world, and on an instinctive level, Gary could feel it.

  “I must be a strange figure to you,” Jason said. “I’m still ing to grips with it myself, to be ho, but my perspective is less important. It’s easy to deal with power when you’re the ohat has it.”

  He gnced up at the leonid.

  “I’ve been watg you your entire life. You didn’t feel it, but I was there. When you were born. When the Karadeniz brothers were chasing you through the park and got caught in that thorn bush you could have sworn wasn’t there when you passed through.”

  Gary blinked, and his eyebrows shot up.

  “Was that…?”

  “Me? Yes, it was. I’ve seen every moment of your life, Gary.”

  “Even when I was taking a dump?”

  “I wasn’t actually watg that. I was, on some level, aware that it was happening. For everyone in my domains. It takes some getting used to, being what I am.”

  “People talk about you like you’re a god sometimes. Are you?”

  “That’s plicated. The short answer is no. The long answer is… kind of. A bit.”

  “That doesn’t make things clear.”

  Jason ughed.

  “Something I am unfortunately very aware of. But we’re not here to talk about me, even if I ’t seem to help myself. You want to know what makes you special. Different.”

  “Yes,” Gary said, his voice half a whisper.

  “Everyone is special, within their own text. A precious child, a loving friend. The short answer is that you’re not any more special than anyone else. But you’re here for the long answer. For the parts of your particur text that you’ve glimpsed, but never really seen.”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. The first thing you should know is that I’m not, strictly speaking, meant to tell you what I’m about to. But the rules, as they rete to you, have bee pretty far already. I’ll expin how and why as we go. But first, I want you to uand that you shouldn’t tell anyone else what I’m going to tell you. You’ll want to talk about it ter, once you’ve thought things over. You find me again, or Rufus. A couple of others. You met my friends at the party, and I know that Emi had told you about Farrah. You don’t really know her yet, but she might be someone you want to talk to. Also, your mother’s obstetri.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll get there. Probably best if I go all the way back, and e at this in order. I’ve been told I’m not the best at expining things, but it begins, as you know doubt suspect, with my friend Gary…”

  ***

  Some of the homes in Asano vilge were set on a clifftop, digging into the roerge from the cliff face itself, with window walls looking out over the Pacifina sat in a lounge room, in one of two chairs angled between fag the other and looking out to sea. Iher seat was Cire Davney, Uates Secretary of State.

  “Asano wants to expin it all,” Anna said. “What he was doing the st time he was here, and why. How that leads into what lies ahead for our p.”

  “Your is that he won’t be believed.”

  “To put it mildly, yes. I’ve heard the full expnation, Cire, and with the full text, it reads like a holy text. If Jason goes before gress and his first sentence is ‘I know who created the universe and it’s not who your book says,’ no one is going to hear his sed sentence.”

  “ the problematic parts be excised?”

  “Not if you want the actual truth. The actual reasons. Not if you want to uand what the st twenty years have been about, and what’s i. The work doesn’t know, Cire. Not even yours, in the Uates. They’ve been looking at the big picture through a tiny hole, punched in the wall. I’ve heard the full thing, and you hat text.”

  “A private briefing, then?”

  “That gets political very fast. Religion has been more votile than ever in the faagiing out in the open. If we start havi briefings where the mious members of political bodies are excluded, I don’t have to tell you what happens then. That’s true in every try, not just yours, but the Uates will be an especially loud voi the rea.”

  “Then what do you want to do?”

  “That’s what we’ve been sidering for months. Every broad solution leads to pointlessness. If we redaough information to make it patable to everyohere’s not enough left to have value to anyone. If we reveal everything, it creates a political storm that inundates everything. If we try it half and half, we get the worst of both worlds.”

  “Every broad solution.”

  “Secrets are dangerous. When revealed, they do more damage than if they were put into the open in the first pce. But we couldn’t e up with anythier. Magic was governed by secret societies for turies.”

  “And you want to make a new one?”

  “Yes. Crucial people, all around the world. We start by telling them everything.”

  “And then you tell them what to do .”

  “No. If Asano wao tell the Earth what to do, he’d quer it. He wants the people of Earth to make their own choices, but informed ones.”

  “You’re g he has no agenda of his own?”

  “He has is. He’s been impressed with the humanitarian programs the Cabal have instigated sihe reveal of magid wants to support them. Frams instituted by himself and his , he sees magical education as the way forward. He believes that magitech is the pathway for Earth to catch up to worlds with more i magic than we have. Earth’s knowledge of teology outstrips that of magic, to the point of stunting the development of magitech. He wants to ge that.”

  “And who will receive this enhanced magical education?”

  “That’s up for discussion, but in short: everyohe details…”

  Anna stopped at a kno the door.

  “Enter,” she said, and one of the Secretary’s aids came in.

  “Secretary. Mrs Tilden. Director Barstow has asked you both to attend a briefing on an emerging situation.”

  “The CIA wants me to attend?” Anna asked as she and Davney got to their feet.

  “Uh…” the aid said, her eyes darting bad forth unfortably. “The director said that, uh if that slippery little shadow so-and-so is just going to listen in anyway, we might as well have a human being attend. He didn’t actually say so-and-so, but he meant Mr Asano’s—”

  “We’re all familiar with Shade, thank you Courtney,” the secretary said. “Where is the briefing?”

  “There’s a ference tre, Madam Secretary. It was refurbished from a spa tre, apparently.”

  “Meaning that there isn’t a spa tre anymore?”

  “Not that I’m aware, Madam Secretary.”

  “I won’t lie: that’s disappointing. Shall we, Anna?”

  ***

  “…it normally doesn’t work that way,” Jason expined. “Souls usually reappear so far removed from their previous inations that they will never enter someohat khem.”

  “Reination,” Gary repeated for the eighth time. It was after the fifth that Jason had decided to just push on.

  “In this case, the Reaper decided to go a different way. Bend his own rules, o time, before the rules were locked in once more. The ic throhing I told you about, but the details of that don’t matter.”

  “Reination.”

  “Yep.”

  Gary’s face creased in a fused squint.

  “You said a gift?”

  “I did.”

  “The grim reaper gives people gifts?”

  “No, the Reaper just… passed it on. The gift was from my friend Gary. And the gift he gave us was you.”

  “How he give me when he is me?”

  “He isn’t you. And you aren’t him. I know you better than anyone, Gary. Better than you know yourself, and you are not the friend I lost. Rufus isn’t seeing our friend when he looks at you. He’s just remembering. You are your own man. Think of the ary as an aor. Someone who died before you were born, but has an undeniable impa who you are. You’re not him. You’re his legacy, but you also have to make your own way. To be your own person. If you want to know more about him, that’s okay. If you never want to hear ahing, and carve a path entirely your own making, that’s great too.”

  “But I? Am I just some copy of a dead guy?”

  “Not at all. You’re different people. There are simirities. People like you, the way they liked him. You both have a talent for making things, albeit very different things. He was bigger than you. You’re smarter than he was. But those are the little things. You’re young, and none of us know the man yoing to bee. The ary isn’t going to determihat. He just gave us, his friends, the honour of seeing it. Helping you along the way, from time to time.”

  Jason stood up and put a hand on Gary’s shoulder.

  “You have a lot to think about. There’s no rush. I’ll leave you be, for now. If you need anything, just ask. Anything. Lunch. A drink. ee snow skis. A jet pack.”

  “I ’t tell my parents?”

  “Rufus is telling your parents right noould never put this on you and make you keep it from them.”

  Relief spilled across Gary’s face.

  “I’d like to see them.”

  Jason nodded and a portal opened. Jasohrough to where Rufus was with Gary’s parents on the cloud ship. They looked as shaken as their son, and Jason’s sudden arrival didn’t alleviate that. They scrambled to their feet, standing nervous as green fresh soldiers on iion. Rufus made introdus.

  “It’s lovely to meet you,” Jason said. “I know you’ve just heard a lot of strahings.”

  “Well,” Gary’s father said. “This oime, we got turned into lion people. I think we figured about then that life would have some straurns.”

  Jason ughed and shook his hand.

  “That’s a good attitude to have,” Jason said, “and ohink Gary could use right now. He’s asked to see you, and he’s right through there.”

  Gary’s mother wasted no time, grabbing her husband by the arm on her way to the portal.

  “How did it go?” Rufus asked.

  “Not sure. A bit shell-shocked. It’ll take some time. And some love. I like his parents.”

  “I’ve known them a long time,” Rufus said.

  “You should gh as well. Just go in the house if they need some space, but be there if they need you. I’m going to go poke my head into a CIA briefing. There’s something going on in Pakistan.”

  ***

  “…gold-rank maion has reached the state of being visible to the naked eye.” The woman ons reported from a wrid station. “We anticipate full maion in forty-two to forty-seven minutes.”

  “And why is it happening in Pakistan an issue?” Jason asked, stepping out of a shadow in the er. The people in the room turned in surprise, except for Anna, who rolled her eyes. Jason held out his hand for Cire Davo shake.

  “Madam Secretary.”

  Cire made quitrodus. There were several CIA agents in the room, along with Anna, Natalie Park of ASIS, the secretary herself, and Courtney, her staffer. The woman ons was Juliet e, of the US work.

  “Sorry to just jump in,” Jason said, “but the situation seemed urgent. You’ll have tive my ignorance of peopolitics, but I’ve been away for some time. Why does being in Pakistan make it a rger problem?”

  “Pakistan was always an Ismic state,” Anna expined, “but it doubled down heavily iime you’ve been away. It has embraced magitech, but has outersonal magical abilities as a religious affront. It ousted all magical fas and has grown increasingly isotionist.”

  “How do they deal with high-rank monsters?” Jason asked. “Or even mid-ranked ones? If all they have is normal people with magically enhanced rifles, even a bronze-rank monster would give them trouble, right?”

  “The Pakistani gover secretly maintains a small number of essence users to deal with high-rank issues,” Cire said. “The US helps them maintain the group, iurn for certain very quiet cessions. They are not up to the task of handling a gold-rank maion, though.”

  She gave Jason a pointed look.

  “What we could use is someoside of existing gover and magical fa structures, with the ability to deploy rapidly and the strength to handle gold-rank monsters.”

  “With minimum colteral damage,” added Juliet, still ons. “The maion is over the Indus River, close the Sukkur Barrage.”

  “That’s a dam?” Jason asked.

  “Yes,” Juliet said. “Ohat regutes the rgest irrigation system on the p. Even ign the political ramifications of its destru, the humanitarian and eic impact would be devastating.”

  “I step in,” Jason said. “ you smooth my intervention over with the locals?”

  “We have tacts within the Pakistani gover,” Cire said. “Privately, they’ll be grateful. Publicly, they’ll denounce you. ‘Uninvited incursion onto sn nds,’ that kind of thing.”

  “Behind closed doors, this might help us hahe religious issues we’re looking at,” Anna said. “I know that’s not why yoing to help them, Jason, but if you do good here, it help us, too.”

  “We should get started,” Cire said. “Mr Asano, if you could prepare, that would be appreciated, but wait for my signal. I o tact the Pakistani Minister for Fn Affairs first, and this is a time to ask for permission, not fiveness. If you all could clear the room, please, and Courtney, please reach out to the Ministry of Fn Affairs for a call with the minister. I suspect he is waiting for us to do so.”

  Jaso, alongside Anna and the others. The main area of Asano vilge still maintained a holiday feel, if one under occupation with vans and security teams everywhere.

  “Jason, I know this isn’t the time,” Anna said, “but do you remember our versations about majover officials and the importance of using doors?”

  “I uand, Anna,” his voice casual and friendly. “But a versation we never had was about how I helped build this pce with my own hands, for my family. My patience is rgely occupied with keeping my desire to kill everyone here and turn this pto a crater out of my demeanour. So, I hear you, but you were extremely right about this not being the time. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I o go tell my friends it’s time to fight some evil.”

  “Try and py up the superhero theme,” she said. “Colourful, fshy; keep people and the dam safe. You’re the world’s first superhero, and eople to remember that.”

  “I’d tell you there are more important things to be thinking about,” Jason said, “but fshy is kind of my thing.”