"Anything?" [For the ninety third time: No, sir.] "Ugh..." Armastus slunk down into his chair. His head barely peaking over the top of the desk laden with messy papers. His sleep deprived status was almost nearing the state of a high school student.

  Without sitting back up Armastus reached his arm over the desk towards a yellow button installed into the top. With a click a voice spoke form the room's PA. "What's up sir?" Denton's tired voice boomed due to the increased PA volume. Armastus clapped his hands over his ears, shocked by the cacophony. He glared at a camera on the wall. "Don't make me regret giving you sapience Ferris!" [Sir. I thought this would be an excellent way of waking you up without anymore caffeine.]

  Armastus paused. He sat up. He hadn't been drinking any caffeinated drinks. Something was wrong. [Sir? What's the matter?] "You're not Ferris..." The richest person in the solar system scowled. His mind racing for what to do. He didn't expect the anomaly to interact with him so soon, or even at all. The thought of what happened when he first met an anti-causal anomaly made him shiver.

  "Oh relax." The voice over the PA suddenly changed to a child's.

  Denton heard all of this and was both confused and scared. Who could possibly hack into his boss' own office room, and then control the nexus AI for the whole of the Tōbō conglomerate. Before Denton could ask Armastus told him to take the rest of the day off. He was reluctant, but understood that this wasn't something that he could help with.

  "There. We're alone. Now what the fuck is something like you doing here. I was promised freedom from anymore of your bullshit." Armastus spoke with vitriol while examining the neural logs of Ferris. The feed was normal for the first few lines reading off: [WTRR: Scanning for anomalies within all sensory packets... Severity: 4%... Result: common... Retrying...] nearly four hundred lines per second of just that one sequence, occasionally broke by an admin request for anomaly findings. But since the most recent line for an admin request the log violently changed. [WTRR: Scanning for anomalies within all sensory packets... Severity: 100%... Result: MY TURN]

  Armastus, having confirmed his fears, focused his eyes to the person that appeared behind the transparent hologram screen. Nezha stood there, his hair slowly waving without any wind, and flickers of magenta lights could be seen beneath his matted hair, which in the air's exposure released pale blue particles floating away into the immaterial. His eyes focused unblinking on the weak human across the desk from him. A thin smile stretched across his face.

  "I just wanted to enjoy your reaction." Nezha was going to enjoy toying with this survivor. Armastus snapped back. "I was promised! Those gods swore I would never have to deal with any more of this bullshit. And they've held their word. I entertained then for long enough. If you want some damned story go ask them to tell you of my years of suffering!" Nezha put one finger up to his lips. A phantom of his hand did the same to Armastus, shushing him. "Don't worry. You were given the rules yes? Think a little bit about what they told you." Armastus furiously rampaged through thoughts about his horrible conversation with his long time tormentors. Then laughed.

  "You're here now. Which means I'm safe. I'm safe! AHAHA!" His fit lasted a good while before looking back to the trespasser. "Why aren't you gone?" His eyes had a newfound fury to them. The fear previously hidden underneath was eaten by elation. Nezha squinted slightly. "I suppose that should be enough." He took a step back and turned his head to the left, a paper appeared floating for Nezha to read. Then another, and more. Hundreds of papers written with what looked like some odd seismographic readings given an artistic flare, lines no longer obeying the mathematical definition of a function. Nezha smiled as he read the lines. "This means that everything is ready for when the coil opens. Good good."

  The Apraith looked at the suzerain with eager anticipation. "Best of luck in your endeavors little god slayer." With that; the papers began to swarm around Nezha until he was obscured, then he vanished. The papers fell to the floor, making a pattern of a storm's eye across the carpet.

  On the campus of Corvis University, on a walkway just detached from the central quad, splitting apart Weiber Hall and the Community Center stood three students in front of a café. "So you said you wanted somewhere to talk in safety right?" Zoe look at the bewildered Harriet with a mischievous grin. Hwang was chatting with RAFE on the sidelines.

  "So this is..?" Harriet looked at her long time friend with mild concern. Zoe didn't let up her grin. "Why? It's a completely isolated café from the rest of society via alternate reality bullshit- of course!" Harriet looked at her long time friend with much concern. "Come come." Zoe beckoned Harriet into the Flaming Wheel.

  *Crack!* The sound of some unknown material breaking was the first thing the quartet heard upon entering. *Crack!* Another. This one much more visceral and with the distinct sound of a pan wobbling faintly heard at well. "Say! It!" Julian was shouting to someone with ignited anger. Nezha's voice wallowed. "Okay! Okay! Just let up with t-" *Crack!* "Julian I think that's enough." The barista girl commented him to let up. Harriet was too focused on the drama to get a clear look at the foreign design of the café, she and the rest of party rounded the central bar design to see a rather addling mess.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  Nezha was knelling before the two café workers looking genuinely apologetic while Julian was wrestling the girl who had just advised him to stop from walloping Nezha over the head with an abnormally large and fuzzy rodent. "My turn!" She was acting like a child not getting candy at the market. "I wanna put this damned Zealot in a comma! I swear I'll do it." "Ahem!" Hwang cleared his throat to get their attention.

  "Hi how can I help?" In a single instant the whole scene vanished as if it was just a day dream. In fact the four diners had been moved to the front of the counter for orders. The girl had her hat resting on the counter revealing her pale brunette hair in the multicolored lights of the room. She had a nametag clipped to her short sleeve on the right arm that read "Thalia Baxter" in finely embossed writing.

  "Can we have the banana bread?" Zoe asked Thalia with a casual attitude one would expect from a frequent patron to any café. "For all of you?" "Yes." No hesitation. Harriet, still trying to process what this place was, how she just teleported to the counter, and what the hell Zoe get herself into, was staring blankly forward. Zoe picked her up with a little heft and moved her to a table nearby.

  After a few minutes of cascading into a minor panic attack Harriet regained her composure. Zoe introduced her to the Flaming Wheel Café. "Welcome to the Flaming Wheel. The best café in this dimension, and a few others. Everything on the menu here is super good. But looks completely mediocre. Just the standard stuff you'd find at any other small time coffee shop. This place is completely isolated from our reality. And according to Julian (the hot guy over there)-" Zoe put her hand up in a mocking whisper and pointed across the room to where Julian was. Only for her finger to tap him on the nose as he was crouched next to their table. "Gah!" Zoe jumped back while sitting, causing her thighs to hit the bottom of the table, which in turn stunted her trajectory making her fall to the floor with a clean thud.

  "Ugh..."

  Julian grinned at the display. "What about me?" His expression made it clear he heard everything. Julian's outfit had changed to more casual attire, with a baggy hoodie, sweat pants and a fleece jacket on top. A strange smell accompanied, foreign enough that you could only describe it as sweet sulfur.

  "Well... Uh... I-" Zoe tries to explain herself but came up short. Sitting back down she looked towards Hwang for help. He looked up from his phone, talking with RAFE, and stared at her with disapproval. "You still haven't introduced us. Yet expect us to meditate to problem?" His tone was exasperated. Zoe felt the mood around the table stiffen. "Sheesh... Sorry. I just- ah... Nevermind." Everyone was tied up and afraid to break the silence.

  Julian regretted his way of introducing himself, not his brightest moment, not his worst either. That goes to the bevelward disaster. His habit of self blame flared up again.

  Hwang took a moment to reflect on what he said. He knew he was rude. He wanted to be in the right. But he still felt bad about it. "Sorry for snapping at you." Hwang tried to pat Zoe's shoulder from across the table, but couldn't reach. So instead he left his palm open for her to grab.

  Zoe gave a low sigh and tapped his hand away. "It's fine I know you and RAFE have been working hard to keep up the diffusion of RAFE." As Zoe began to explain what the Flaming Wheel café is the Harriet, Julian went to pick up their banana bread from the counter.

  "-and lastly for the reason we're doing all this: Nezha- the thing/child/God that caused all this- promises to make us gods as well if we could get RAFE to that point." Zoe's explanation left Harriet with too many questions that Zoe couldn't answer. So instead she just put them in a corner of her mind to fester.

  "Okay, now. What did you want to tell us?" Zoe picked up a piece of banana bread from the tray placed in the middle of the table. 'How do they make it this good?' Her thoughts were innocent and ignorant.

  "I... I think you might get kidnapped." Zoe's absent minded smile turn sinister in an instant.

  "I said kidnapped! Why are you happy!?" Harriet was getting increasingly disturbed by Zoe's change in nature. Zoe pointed towards Hwang. "Aren't you forgetting who he is? Or more importantly his family?"

  Harriet knew. Everyone knew. The Eoh family was the superpower of the city, Legguso. Their spending accounted for nearly a third of the city's taxes for the Mercurial Coalition. They employed a huge portion of the workforce and had multiple charities under their umbrella. The charities being their real proof of power, as on Mercury there was no obligation for societal uniformity, so creating a charity was a huge gamble for others to exploit you. But the alacrity of humanity shown through. They had made the public bus system, the water and electric systems, the city lighting, and even the healthcare all a charity. Not one person paid to use these infrastructures in all of Legguso.

  But none of that excused the danger of a kidnapping. "Let's also not forget who we have watching out for us." Zoe waved her phone, indicating RAFE's presence.

  Hwang let out a pent up sigh. "That should be all for now..." He slunk down his chair and his heels slid into Harriet's shoes. He mumbled a sorry and sat back up, looking at the banana bread. "You said this was good?" Zoe gave an enthusiastic nod, unable to say yes with her mouth full. "Alright. I've never been one for banana flavor. But eh. When Nezha's involved anything could happen." *Chomp*

  A silent moment.

  Another.

  *Chomp*

  "Nope still don't like it." "Really!?"

  Harriet was- for lack of any better words know to any language- flummoxed. At every turn this encounter had caught her off guard, she had risked her safety to warn her friends of a kidnapping attempt on them, only for them to brush it off, high on whatever power they felt they had. She pouted in silence, reaching for a slice of bread. She took a bite. Then stared at Hwang. "How do you not like this?"