About an hour after saying goodbye to Curtis, Luke found himself smushed in the backseat of a dark car with tinted windows, driving to some undisclosed location. On either side of him, agents in dark suits and blank expressions kept their eyes focused straight ahead. At least they hadn't handcuffed him.

  "Shouldn't I have a bag over my head?" he asked in an attempt to lighten the mood.

  No one answered him.

  Sighing to himself, he returned to the many messages sent his way from friends. The news of Relian's passing spread like wildfire once he told a couple of people, and he was almost drowning in congratulations, exclamations in Spanish, and other well-wishes.

  Singling one out, he focused on his sister.

  Milla: "Really? He's dead. You're sure?"

  Luke: "I'm sure. We made sure of it. There's nothing left."

  Milla: "Just like that?"

  Milla: "It doesn't feel real."

  Luke: "I can agree with that, but I promise you, he's gone."

  Milla: "Thank you, little brother. Maybe now I'll be able to sleep."

  Luke: "You should give that a try right now. Go sleep!"

  "What the fuck is that?" the agent driving the car barked, and the car rocked to the side.

  A small patch of dark void appeared right inside the windshield. All of a sudden, Luke found a handgun pointed at the side of his head. "Stop that!"

  "I'm not doing anything," Luke said, gesturing to the void. "I'm a healer, remember?"

  "Stop it!" The agent's voice was filled with fear, and his eyes were wide as he pressed the tip, or whatever you called it, of the gun against Luke's temple.

  "Easy with that," Luke said, keeping his voice calm as the void creature seemed to stretch and raise part of itself into the air to sniff. "What if we hit a speed bump or something, and you blow my brains out? I don't want to be Pulp Fiction'ed all over the back seat."

  "Easy, Smith!" the agent on the other side shouted, gesturing for the weapon to be lowered as he turned to Luke, pointing to the little void. "You know what that is?"

  "No," Luke said, lying. Well, perhaps it wasn't that much of a lie. He didn’t know what it was, after all. "I swear, I don't know, but I don't think it's dangerous. I mean, look at it."

  Luke pointed, and it looked to be just sitting there, chilling.

  Even then, the agents just would not calm down, except for the one sitting on Luke's left-hand side. The car swerved down an off-ramp and hit the shoulder, sending a jolt through the entire vehicle as it scraped along before the driver overcompensated with a sharp left turn.

  Gun still to his head, Luke couldn't risk it anymore. Using Threads of Mana, he lifted the gun upward, pushing until it pointed at the roof of the car. This freaked the agent out even more, and his finger twitched, clamping down on the trigger as the car screeched, spinning with enough force to flip. They spun once, then twice, before coming to a stop.

  "What the fuuuuuuck?" Luke said, looking around, glad he'd been wearing his seatbelt.

  The driver had worn his, but from the state of the others, he was the only one. Even the patch of void had been thrown around and was now a smudge against the side window by the passenger's seat.

  "How are you this stupid?" Luke shouted, berating the injured even as he healed them.

  Having slammed his face into the back of the driver's seat, the agent to Luke's left was covered in blood running from his crushed nose as he slumped to the side, unconscious. To his right, the one with the gun had dropped it to the car floor, and he sat there blinking, his jaw a mess and one of his eyes just a ruin of red and clear goop. At the front, the agent in the passenger's seat slumped forward, forehead resting on the instrument panel, airbag deployed but now drained of air.

  "Seriously?" Luke asked, extending threads to each of them.

  "What just happened?" the driver asked, his hands still clamped to the steering wheel.

  The car stood right-side-up at least, with the side facing traffic. A long line of people honking was forming behind them.

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  "Your driving is ass," Luke grunted as he restored the crushed chest of the passenger's seat agent. "And what kind of reaction is that to a harmless little voidling?"

  Voidling? The name had just popped into his head, but Luke found he liked it. It was sentient, he was pretty sure, as it slid down the window onto the agent's shoulder, rose up on four thin legs of nothing, then trotted over to Luke's lap.

  Reaching out to put a hand on it, stroking what might or might not be its back, the voidling began to vibrate, almost like it was purring. With the first patient dealt with, Luke fixed up the other two. For a moment, he considered leaving the eye broken to teach that asshole a lesson, but decided against it. They'd blame him for this, too, so building some goodwill wouldn't hurt.

  The four of them sat in silence for a while after Luke took care of their injuries, then Luke cleared his throat. "And that is why we wear seatbelts."

  All four of them turned to look at him petting the creature, prompting him to stop, and the voidling turned in on itself, disappearing. "Soooo... Should we get going?"

  The car, it turned out, was busted. Another headed their way, and soon he was once again on the move. Another hour of driving and he reached Pittsburgh, of all places. They put him in what could only be described as a cell in the local DIA headquarters during the night, but Luke still slept like a baby.

  The next morning, before breakfast even, showered and clad in some borrowed khakis and a light blue, ill-fitting dress-shirt, he found himself in another gray interrogation room. It looked similar to the one in Chicago, and the building was even placed right next to the local orb. Seated across from him, though, was not just a single DIA agent. Two men and a woman were seated on the opposite side of the table, with five more standing behind them. Luke forgot their names as soon as they gave them, but they were a mixed bunch from the FBI, NNSA, DOD, DHS, and even the CIA. Quite the group.

  Before they even got started on what Luke supposed would be an unpleasant conversation, he got a surprise message.

  Ray: "Hey, Luke! They tell me you want to blow up a major US city with a nuke? That's kind of rad, but maybe you shouldn't."

  Luke: "Who even says 'rad' anymore?"

  Ray: "Sus? No cap."

  Luke: "...I'm not going to blow up a city. Never even threatened anyone."

  He eyed the many faces studying him from across the table. "I never said anything about using a nuke."

  Luke: "Did the CIA put you up to this? Where are you, even? Could've used your help with The Fallen Shepherd."

  Ray: "I wanted to, but couldn't get away. I'm not in the US right now. Can't really say. Good job with that, by the way, fam."

  Luke: "Thanks..."

  Ray: "Well, just go all sigma and use your rizz to make them believe you. You're GOATed after all. I low-key believe in you."

  Luke: "...Bet."

  "There. I told Ray too."

  The CIA agent's gaze shifted to his colleagues, and he cleared his throat. "You admit to harboring a nuclear warhead?"

  "Burt," the seated FBI agent said, turning to look over his shoulder. "I'm taking the lead on this one, remember?"

  The carefree attitude Luke presented to the others in the room didn't go all that deep. These were some frightening people. Each and every one of them could throw him in some unmarked cell on the bottom of the sea, wrapped in chains, and wait.

  So, to avoid being on their collective shit list, Luke decided to cooperate. "Yes, I have it."

  The FBI agent, a woman in her late forties with her dark blond hair in a messy bun, thick-framed glasses in need of a polishing cloth, and a light gray suit, sat up a little straighter, squaring her shoulders. It made the tag over her breast pocket move a little, catching Luke's eye. She and the DIA agent were the only ones using them, and it showed her name. Agent Halstrom.

  Halstrom scanned the page in front of her, adjusting her glasses. "In your... inventory? Is that the term?"

  "It is," the DIA agent said.

  "That's right," Luke confirmed.

  Halstrom shook her head and looked up at Luke over the rim of her glasses. "According to this report on Integrated abilities, that's impossible."

  "It's an upgrade," the DIA agent, Linden, said.

  "A what?" Halstrom asked.

  Luke, in an effort to speed the conversation along, explained. "It's an upgrade I purchased with credits in the Integrated shop. I can store any item I want, not just stuff from dungeons."

  "That..." The DOJ agent began, looking like someone had just punched him in the gut. "That has some serious implications for the safety of this nation."

  Ignoring him, Halstrom gestured toward Luke. "Well, either way, you will need to surrender the warhead to us."

  "Won't it blow up?" Luke asked. "I mean, it's armed."

  "Should we be in the same room as this young man?" one of the suits asked.

  Another added, "Or same town? Whose idea was it to bring Mr. Quinn to a major urban center?"

  After that, they all turned to one guy standing in the back, leaning against the wall. He was younger, his hair standing in all directions, and he looked like he hadn't slept in a good long while. With all the attention on him, he straightened a little, which didn't do much to help his disheveled state. "That's what I told you already. If you'd listen, I could-"

  "It'll blow?" Burt, the CIA agent, asked.

  "Yes! I told you! It was armed and within a second or two of reaching its target!"

  "What if it explodes in Mr. Quinn's inventory?"

  "It says 'stasis' in the description," Luke said.

  "What if we send him out of the country?" someone suggested.

  "Or space?" another added.

  “Sell it to the Integrated shop,” Agent Linden suggesten.

  Luke shook his head. “Already tried that. It won’t allow me to sell non-system items.”

  “Trade it to someone.”

  Suspecting what the result would be, Luke initiated a trade with Linden, who was a low-level Integrated.

  Non-System Items Are Not Eligible For Trade.

  “Doesn’t work,” Linden said with a sigh.

  Alan: "How are you faring in there?"

  Luke: "Great. Just great."

  Alan: "Glad to hear it. I have someone for you to heal. I'd ask Dorothy, but I think this one is above her level, and this matter can't wait, if you take my meaning. You'll be well compensated."

  Luke: "I'm not sure I'll get out of here anytime soon."

  Alan: "Like I said before, just say the word and I'll help."

  "Throwing the problem to another country would do wonders for international relations," Halstrom said, shaking her head. "And the risk of handing a warhead over to a foreign power is not something we can ignore. This is not a roundtable discussion. We have a clear case of FBI jurisdiction, as ruled by the judge. We'll make the call."

  Luke gave her a long look. "And what's the call?"