Hall doesn't buy a lot of things. This chair has been in this office since the beginning of time and I don't see it going anywhere any time soon. He's frugal, that's all--it's not a bad thing, but this chair was falling apart in the seventies and has no place still existing in the modern day.

"Thanks for coming on short notice," he says. There's a missing spark in his eye, but I gathered as much from his tone on the phone.

"I wasn't doing much anyway," I say, squirming to find a comfortable spot on the flat wood.

"The higher-up actually sent me something," he says.

I've heard Hall talk about his boss a few times, usually with indifferent words. But never about what he did. Only vague phrases about morality or something, I don't know, I wasn't really listening the last time.

"I have a job?" I ask.

Hall goes quiet. He drums his fingers on the desk for a second before answering.

"Maybe? I...maybe. I don't know if I want you getting into this."

"Last week you sent me to a meat-packing plant to catch a Type-1B disposing of murder victims in the grinder. I really can't see this being worse than that."

"It's not like that. That was disgusting-"

"Digusting doesn't even start to cover it-"

"-but you weren't ever in danger," Hall finishes, glaring at me.

"He had a gun," I protest, but only halfheartedly because he knows I'm right.

"We all know that doesn't matter as much as you like to think it does."

"It keeps me from doing anything stupid."

"Didn't stop you last time," he says.

"I brought the guy down. He's not murdering anyone anymore."

"You killed him. What was it you...God, I don't even know. Too many things."

I cross my arms. "The point is that he was a dangerous guy in a dangerous place, and I dealt with it without collateral. Everyone wins. Except him, but who cares."

Hall sighs. Normally joking like that gets me at least half of a chuckle, but it's dead in the water today.

"Emotion, listen to me."

I blink. This must be serious shit, if he's going ahead and using my title.

It's not really a name. I didn't have parents that gave birth to me, held me over their heads in front of a crowd of eager subjects and declare me to be 'Emotion'.

I just appeared like that.

It's also a long story.

I lean back. "Fine."

"My boss told me that the demons are in danger of winning the war," Hall said, picking up a pen and twisting off the top, dumping the well, spring and tip onto his desk.

He does that when he's nervous. I do almost the same thing, so I try not to say anything about it.

"You've been working here for three months. In that time I've had you do everything from escorting trick-or-treaters to tracking down murderers. You've given a child an ice cream cone to stop an explosion that would've taken out a hundred and fifty people or more. Things I could never do. Things I don't think I could even dream of. I don't know exactly what you are, but you've managed to accomplish everything I've thrown at you. And I'm thankful. But I honestly think this might be too much."

I resist. "At least tell me why."

"You'll have to talk to my boss directly. This is his mission and he's forcing me out of it. That's what's keeping me on the fence."

"Not being in control?"

He shrugs. "More or less."

"So who's your boss?"

I ask it like it doesn't matter, but truth be told it's a question I never thought I'd ask. Or get a real answer to.

I do the first and get the second.

"He's like you, as far as I can tell. Not...not a Type 1A, as he calls us normal people. Type 5."

I've only had to deal with Type 1A, occasional 1Bs, a handful of rogue 2s and a 3, once.

Never a 5.

"What're Type 5s?"

"I don't know," he says, and I believe it. I can tell when Hall's lying to me--he does it a lot, mostly on instinct. Don't tell the agent everything or they'll get suspicious; don't tell the child everything because they'll get scared.

I'm both, so he does both.

I immediately picture a dragon-demon hybrid, breathing hellfire and raining damnations upon the souls of the wretched, but that'd probably be a type 8 or 9, not 5.

"And what does he want?"

"He wants you to investigate something in there. Indefinitely."

An indefinite assignment. That's a big deal.

"So...when am I meeting your boss for it?"

"He's coming here. Should be arriving in-" he checks his watch, and I automatically go pale.

"That soon?"

"Five minutes, tops."

"I don't get a day to sleep on it?" I ask, trying and failing to force the fear out of my voice.

Hall shrugs. "If you take a nap for five minutes, you will."

"I-"

"Don't complain to me. There's nothing I can do about it now. This whole endeavor is out of my hands. You can worry about it all you want, and you can say no to--to my boss when he gets here, but right now he's coming and there's nothing I can do to stop him. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to fix up my desk and make it look like I run a tight ship. You're welcome to go outside for a bit and do whatever, but as soon as you see him pull up, come back inside."

I nod. "Right."

With that, I get up and leave.

His office is a tiny room in a tiny building. I think this place used to be an insurance office or something, because there's a little lobby with green shag carpet and a wood-panelled desk, and on either side of that is a little office space that the lawyers or something worked in. Hall owns the left one, and I live in the right one.

Hall doesn't live here. I actually have no idea where he lives. He doesn't talk about his personal life very often. There's a picture of his family on his desk, and every time I go in there it turns a little bit further away from him, so I can only assume bad things are happening on that front.

He doesn't take his anger--if he has any--out on me. I don't even know what he does outside of give me missions and file paperwork.

I think about going to my room instead of going outside, but the soundproofing in there is bad and I don't think he's kicking me out to straighten up. The desk was spotless already.

I open the glass door--wince as it squeaks--and step out onto the sidewalk.

There's a few cars parked in front of the other buildings that share this parking lot, but only one parked in front of Hall's place. The sign says 'Frank and Son Insurance' but neither Frank, nor his son work here, and we certainly don't do insurance work.

It's cloudy but warm outside, at least for an April morning. Maybe fifty degrees. It rained last night and the pavement is still dark, but the air feels dry so I don't think the storm is coming back.

I take a moment to think.

Hall's boss is coming to give me an assignment. An indefinite assignment among people who aren't out to kill me, but probably would if they found out why I was there, because if Hall isn't telling me what I'm doing there I can only assume it's top-secret spy-mission or something and he's afraid I'll get kidnapped in the next five minutes.

Hall and I are the only people in that building at any given time. I don't think there's ever been more than two souls in that place.

It's lonely work, and I'm used to having two other people for eternal company, not one. It makes a surprisingly large difference.

I wandered only for a few days before I found what would've been my first assignment. I dealt with it, Hall found me, and I've been working for him by choice rather than necessity ever since.

It's not a hard life, not most of the time. Weird, but not hard. Mildly rewarding, depending on what I'm doing. If I picked my own assignments, it's be a little more spiritually fulfilling, but that doesn't get me a bed and food on the table, so I take what I can get.

Sometimes, especially now that I'm alone, I think about the people I've saved, the people I've missed, and the never-ending stream of assignments, and I wonder if I'm actually doing anything here. Nothing I do is world-ending, I've only saved a significant number of people one time, and everything else is the kind of thankless work that inflates your heart, deflates your ego and little else.

But it's all over in a day or two.

This next thing could theoretically be forever.

I don't know if I'm ready for that. I don't know if I'm ready for most of the assignments Hall gives me, but I suck it up and do them anyway. It's the kind of thing that builds character, I guess.

I stare out at the cars rolling by outside of the parking lot and wonder if any of them can see me sitting on the sidewalk. I wonder if any of them think about me like I'm thinking about them--unknowing Type-1As, bumbling through their 9-5 jobs like every other day, blissfully unaware of the fake world going on outside of their real one.

It's not comforting. It feels like watching fish in a fish tank, except the fish in the tank are happy, and they know they're happy, or they know how they can *become happy, and you're the human outside wondering if the fish know if they're hungry or not.

You feel powerful. But you're not.

The person I'm meeting now is real power. To hear Hall talk about him is to hear a priest talk about God--this man owns his heart and soul and can do just about anything to anyone without any of the authorities batting an eye at it.

I've never seen a man without shackles before.

And by the time I come to that conclusion, through all of that winding introspection I drop into whenever I'm alone on a cloudy day, one of the Type-1As in the jetstream drops out and turns into the parking lot.

That'll be him.

I stand up and go inside before the car gets to a spot. Shutting the door behind me, I call out, "He's here!"

Something shuffles behind the left office door and Hall replies, "Em! Come here for a sec!"

I go over to the door, grab the handle, turn it, and he shouts "No! Don't come in. Just stay there. Look, my boss is a weird-looking guy. Don't stare. Please don't. He's gonna have...he's gonna have stuff on his face, but don't stare at him. It's disrespectful and he might not say anything but he'll judge for it, I promise. Please be careful with him."

The inflection in his voice tell me that everything's not alright back there, but I don't say anything to match words to feelings.

"I will!"

"Good l-"

The front door--behind me--creaks open.

"You must be Emily," the man there says, and all of a sudden, I get it.

Hall's boss isn't that tall. Maybe five foot ten, five eleven tops. He's got the whole 40's noir look going, and maybe because he isn't very large he can do it. Gray suit, dark pants, gray hat, and no eyes.

It's a little--who am I kidding, it scared me out of my goddamn wits.

I try not to stare.

He has eye holes, at least--empty black pits where his eyes are supposed to be. Outside of that he's a pretty unassuming figure.

But something about the sound of his voice puts me on edge.

"I am," I say.

There's a few chairs--waiting room chairs--around the perimeter of the room. Hall's boss takes one look at the left door, another at the right, and says after a second, "Pull up a chair. We'll talk here."

He grabs one of the waiting room chairs and spins it to face the window, sitting down and motioning for me to follow.

I do.

"How much has Hall told you?" he opens with.

"Just that this was an indefinite assignment. Nothing past that."

"Good. If he'd told you more I'd be concerned, mostly because I didn't tell him more."

I nod, because I'm not sure what to say.

"The assignment is simple enough. I'm sending you in as a consultant. Ateriaani told me that he worries about the few angels that are left, and how strong the remainder is. He's afraid of a blowout that'll shatter everything he's done to get this far. Your job is to represent me indefinitely, until this whole thing blows over. Eastern Edge has gone on record as supporting the angels--and Eastern Edge is a massive organization with more firepower than the angels ever had. I don't have anything Eastern Edge tier on my side, but...let's just say that I'm working on it. I can't be in three places at once and in order to not seem too suspicious I've given permission to Ateriaani to keep you like anyone else who ends up in their organization. You'll live with the rest of the demons."

I nod.

"Don't think that the demons' name implies anything. Just like the angels themselves, they're humans with big toys. Expect nothing more and you won't be surprised. They'll be killed like any other human, and excluding an extended lifespan, they'll live like one too."

"Okay." I'm almost afraid to say anything else--more words means more time looking him in the eyes, and I can't do that. I just can't.

He hasn't said a damn thing to hurt me and I already feel weak.

"But enough about me. What's Hall been doing to you?"

I blink. "What missions have I been on?"

He nods. "Yeah. Let's start there."

"I...last mission I was on, I went a few miles north and fought off a Type 1B who was fiddling around with some artifacts. He seemed to know what he was doing, and...it was a bit of a long fight."

"Any collateral?"

"A few trees. Nothing else."

He nods again, almost enthusiastically. "Good, good. I like that."

I shrug. "Things like that, mostly."

"And...do you like this stuff?"

I shrug again. "It's decent. Some are better than others. I can't really complain about any of it."

Hall's boss pauses, sighs, and looks me right in the eye.

I think about pulling away but I grin and bear it.

"This mission is going to be long. I very highly doubt you'll be in any real danger--from what I've heard, you're more of a Type 1C than anything else."

1C. I've never heard of that. But it strikes a chord--he knows I'm different.

I realize then that I don't want him to leave without me knowing the extent of his knowledge.

"1C," I say. "Hall's only told me about 1A and 1B."

"1C. It's not a fully defined type like 1A or 1B--in fact, I've only ever seen one other one like you before. A girl, older than you. Taller than anything I've seen."

My breath catches. Logic's met this guy?

"I still see her occasionally, but she's out and busy with other things. I can probably arrange a meeting if you want."

I haven't seen Logic in months. She told me she'd find me after a month and she never did--I'd assumed that Blue Marlin got a hold of her and that was the end.

But I guess not.

The day seems brighter but the clouds won't move.

"But that aside...will you take this? There will be payment beyond what you usually get, seeing as this is direct from me."

Logic.

"I..."

I pause. And then I give it some more thought.

This is my chance to do something real. I don't really care who wins the war down in Holden--it doesn't concern me and it probably never will. But I might see Ateriaani, and he's possibly the most powerful man in the world.

I've been scavenging around in the dark for months now. It feels like years, but that's because I've only been in the real world for that long. Time in 712.9 was a little different.

But I don't know if it's worth it to do this for connections. Money is important, and I want some, but I don't know if this is a responsibility I can handle.

I have to represent this man. My boss's boss, in front of Ateriaani.

I can't say anything yet.

"Why me?" I ask.

He smiles. "You're the only one they can't kill if they get suspicious."

Well. He knows that. And if he knows that, he probably knows everything.

It's not worth prying any further.

I know I have a choice. Hall gave me one. And despite everything I still don't feel like I can say no.

So I don't.

"I'll do it," I say, and I realize I'm sealing the foreseeable future away.

He nods. "Thank you, Emotion. Someone will be here tomorrow to take you to where you need to be. Until then, get anything ready that you want to have."

With that, he leaves, and I'm alone again.

It's a few minutes before Hall comes back out. His eyes are red and his hands are shaking, but he comes out.

"What'd you say?" He says, after staring at me for a second.

He's bracing himself against the wall, but I know when something's not right.

"I told him I'll do it," I say.

Hall's eyes drop. One of his hands clenches in a fist for a second, but it springs loose again, twitching.

"Okay."

He turns around and goes back in his office, shutting the door harder than usual behind him.

I don't have anything left to say because there's nobody left to say them to.

I walk over to the right--side office and close my door.

This is my home. My life, as close as I can come. A bed against the wall, a small desk with a lamp and a few pens I've stolen from Hall's office over the last few months. If he noticed the missing pens, he didn't care - he rarely comes in here anyway, and the few times he had, he never brought them up despite them being in plain sight on my desk.

The bed's not made because no one ever goes in here but me. If it's just going to get unmade again, and I'm never entertaining anyone, why bother?

I don't bother changing into anything. I'm not tired, but I don't have anything else to do.

I lie there for hours, and I'm not sure if sleep ever comes or I just imagine it.