Taking the scenic route through the village, I watched as groups of union soldiers marked with red bandanas tied around their necks rushed into buildings where the last unconverted remained. They had started from the outskirts, working inward to reduce the chance of the commander being alerted early.

  Glancing at the symbiote, it seemed like the memetic spread was finally coming to maturity as one of the intangible symbols floating around the disparate circles was forming into something.

  Aurin went to check on how the conversions were going while she remained intangible. I'd get an update from her once all this was done.

  Xinyu walked along beside me as the karmic ties connected to the Commander drifted to her outstretched hand. Vivi and Makesi followed along behind her. Despite my objection to their presence, our team leader wanted to ensure that everything went well and that we were prepared in the event my anxiety wasn't unfounded.

  Aisling stood on a karst hill overlooking the village, her anti-materiel rifle at the ready.

  I was looking forward to showing Makesi the results of my work and proving that the whole team being here was unnecessary.

  Our walk through the town did not go unnoticed. I waved at infiltrators whose faces I remembered as we passed them on to the command structure. They returned salutes my way as I giggled inside. I was looking forward to owning everyone here.

  Oh, sure, I'd treat them well as any leader should. But the knowledge I'd soon hold more power in my hand than I ever had in my entire life sent tingles down my spine.

  Wait, were those bad tingles? No… I was pretty sure they were good tingles.

  Turning to Xinyu I saw she had finished collecting all the karmic strands. With a nod aimed at Makesi we turned down a narrow lane towards our final destination, the command residence.

  The building was like I saw it the night before, it towered over the temporary structures with a bagua emblazoned on the side. The Water aspect highlighted demonstrating the alignment of the Office.

  As we neared the building I clenched my hands together, only to notice they were damp. Which shouldn't be possible, I didn't sweat, I hadn't in years.

  Looking at the door to the residence I felt my breath coming in shallow, the hair on my skin rose as I felt goosebumps on the back of my neck.

  Turning to look at my team members I let out a long breath, it was just nerves for the big moment. Vivi nodded back to me in reassurance. Nothing to worry about.

  Arriving at the door I went to turn the handle only to come to a screeching stop. My mind whispered in my ear that there was nothing behind the door. That to walk forward with the current cast would be to walk off stage.

  “Any chance I could convince you to head back to the hovercraft and wait for me and Xinyu to finish up here?” I asked, my hand hovering over the doorknob. The closer I reached, the louder that voice inside me became.

  My heart was pounding in my ears; something was wrong.

  “We already went over this. It's far safer for you if we're here to support you. He may not have demonstrated all his capabilities before and honestly, the way you killed him involved a lot of luck,” Makesi replied with a sigh, reaching ahead of me, he opened the door and suddenly all the tension I didn't realize I was carrying let go all at once.

  The colour drained out of the moment, as if I had been tripping on acid a moment ago and someone flicked a switch that killed the high. In the same instant, I felt myself snap back into myself, my old self, before reality had stopped feeling real.

  I was still here. Looking down at myself, I confirmed my Stats were still in effect.

  What the fuck is going on?

  In a daze, I followed after the others. Glancing around the room everything felt too real. Like I had been living in a dream moments ago and finally woke up.

  Xinyu shot me a look that I had no idea how to interpret. Maybe confusion?

  Taking a deep breath, I tried to centre myself, but didn't know how anymore. It felt like I had been shoved into the wrong body, and my skin crawled in rejection of it.

  No… not the wrong body. A body that had already come to the end of its use.

  “So you've returned?” a voice called from down a hall.

  The moment he rounded the corner, Vivi vanished, appearing on the other side of him. She swiped her arm down to dislodge the blood that was covered in.

  With basically no fanfare, the commander toppled over in two pieces. Only for his sword to start to turn into mist again.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Are you going to do your job?” Makesi asked Xinyu, who had been standing there staring blankly at the body while the sword got away.

  She turned to look at him and blinked before seeming to realize what she was supposed to do. With a pull of her arm, the rope of karmic threads snapped and bound to her. The mist that once was the sword reformed, sheathed at her side, and a light was emitted from her tail as it swished back and forth.

  Between swipes, the tail seemed to split into two, not that Xinyu seemed to care.

  “Why is the script gone?” she asked, turning to face me, her face blank.

  “I don't know! Something's wrong, it feels like we've crossed the final act and the play is over,” I replied, running a hand through my hair. “There were too many actors that came with us here. This wasn't how it was supposed to go!”

  “What does that even mean?” Vivi asked from the other side of the room, as she stepped over the corpse of the commander. “We're fine nothing has—”

  I felt myself drop to one knee, Vivi's voice cut off mid sentence as an instinct to obey settled down over me. Swatting that instinct aside I glanced up, only for my eyes to meet those of The Emperor.

  There was no other name that he could be given, for that was his true title declared by the Heavens themselves. The knowledge came to my mind like it had always been there.

  He was clothed in white, which signified funeral garb, I was pretty sure. Considering the death of his minion, I supposed that was appropriate for the moment, if a little rushed.

  Looking at his mental concept, I felt the last remnants of hope rush from my soul. There was no defeating the inevitable, not when we had walked right into it unprepared.

  The Emperor let out a sigh, and it felt like the weight of the world was hoisted onto my back for an instant before I shoved it off. Glancing to the side I saw Xinyu was still standing, which made sense thematically with her role… which she didn't even have anymore?

  How did any of this work?

  “You've caused me a lot of trouble, you know. Despite his incompetence, Zhou was useful to me. Now he no longer exists, and you've replaced him with… that thing,” his words thundered in the air around me while he lazily pointed at Xinyu.

  My mind went back to when Aisling first put all the responsibility on my shoulders. How did the book word it?

  It was something like ‘whatever Ren comes up with,’ wasn't it? The others overriding what I came up with and inserting themselves into this scene is what caused the ontological failure… That's why the play ended prematurely.

  Fuck me. This is what I get for giving other people agency.

  “Well, that's it then?” I asked aloud, not really to him, not really to myself.

  Xinyu glanced my way and shrugged.

  The wall behind The Emperor exploded inward and a bullet traveling at hypersonic speeds slammed into Vivi's hand. Her eyes glowed white and her face remained blank as she shielded The Emperor from the round Aisling fired.

  She vanished an instant later, only for a notification to appear in my vision.

  Contractor Aisling has died

  Vivi was gone from the room, though, which meant…

  I unholstered my gun and aimed it his way, only for my arm to vanish. She had returned from having killed Aisling in a blur, only for her to drop to the floor right as the white light in her eyes burned out. Leaving blackened husks in their place.

  Contractor Vivi has died

  “Such a waste,” The Emperor muttered to himself.

  I dropped to the floor when the pain from losing my arm hit. In the last moment of my life, I watched as Makesi stood over me. White light burned in his eyes when he drove the blue liquid that was his magic into my skull.

  Contractor Ren has died

  For a moment, there was nothing, not even blackness existed in the in-between. Then I found myself sitting at a table in front of a console. No longer did I feel wrong in the body I was inhabiting, and colour had returned to the world around me. A final message hung in the air in front of me.

  Contractor Makesi has died

  The last act had concluded, and we reached a bad end. All we could do was move on and start a new play from act one.

  Looking up I saw Aisling sitting across from me, her face buried in her hands. She was no longer in the body of a fourteen-year-old, instead hear appearance was that of a woman in their mid-twenties. Her long, dirty blonde hair was tucked behind her pointed ears.

  She was also absolutely covered in tattoos. Like full sleeves on both arms, from what I could see of her chest was completely covered as well. At first, all of it looked like random scribbles, but the longer I looked, the more patterns I could see hiding amongst the lines.

  “Where are the others?” I asked, frowning at the sound of my voice. It was off slightly, and a few registers lower from what I was used to.

  Aisling jumped as if surprised to hear me speak. She stared at me with wide eyes for a moment before letting out a sigh and leaning her head on her hand.

  “Their memories are being pulled from backup copies. They died under the influence of mind control. The System doesn't want to bring Contractors back in that state,” she replied, running one of her fingers along the table in a circular motion.

  “Wait. When was their last backup?” I asked, already dreading the answer.

  “Before we went out on the Contract for Makesi… and for Vivi, it would be right before she started her last Life,” Aisling replied.

  “God fucking damn it, what was the point of any of that!” I slammed my fist against the table, only for it to bounce off like a rubber ball being thrown at a hard surface.

  Aisling shrugged in response, “Sometimes Contracts go poorly. I suppose we know what caused the other team to be completely wiped out and why there was no information. They should have declared a potential risk of mind seizure, though…” She paused for a breath in consideration. “Unless management removed it to incentivize people taking the Contract.”

  “So Earth is just fucked now?”

  “Pretty much, there's no way a new team can be brought in on time. The dimension was already hopeless when we got there. This just sealed the deal,” she replied, confirming the fate of my home for the entirety of my life.

  For some reason, I couldn't seem to care. It felt like it was distant from me. Like the role that might care had been shed from my body, and in its place a new one sat like a new set of clothes.

  “What now?” I asked, as I leaned back in my seat.

  “Your after Contract details should be on the screen in front of you. Deal with that while we wait for the other two to be remade,” she replied, seemingly taking her own advice as she looked down at the panel in front of her and swiped through it.

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