Death wasn't dramatic.
There was no car crash. No gunshot. No last stand in a burning building. Todd Williams, age twenty-two, died on a Tuesday afternoon because his heart just… stopped.
He'd been sitting on his bed in his apartment in Baltimore, laptop propped against his thighs, halfway through a chapter of a light novel he'd been meaning to finish for two weeks. His phone was charging on the nightstand. A half-eaten bag of Hot Cheetos sat crumpled beside his pillow. The ceiling fan was wobbling on its axis the way it always did, ticking like a metronome.
And then—nothing.
No pain. No warning. No dramatic last thought. One second he was reading. The next, the world just… turned off.
When it turned back on, Todd wasn't in Baltimore anymore.
He wasn't anywhere.
He was standing—or floating, or existing, it was hard to tell—in a space that had no walls, no floor, no ceiling. It was white, but not the white of a hospital or a blank page. It was the white of absence. Like someone had deleted everything and left him standing in the void where reality used to be.
"Yo," Todd muttered, looking down at himself. His body was there. Same caramel skin. Same lean frame. Same black hoodie he'd been wearing when he died. He patted his chest. Solid. He touched his face. Solid.
He turned in a slow circle. Nothing in every direction.
"Aight," he said to no one. "This is either the afterlife or I'm having a stroke. Either way, this is trash."
"You are not having a stroke."
The voice came from everywhere. It didn't have a direction. It didn't echo. It simply was, the way gravity was, the way time was. Deep and smooth and utterly unhurried, like whoever was speaking had never once been interrupted in their existence and never expected to be.
Todd flinched, then immediately tried to play it off like he didn't. He squared his shoulders and looked up, even though there was no "up" to look at.
"Who said that?"
"I did."
Something materialized in front of him.
It wasn't a person, exactly. It was a shape—vaguely humanoid, seven or eight feet tall, composed entirely of soft golden light. It had no face. No features. Just an outline that suggested a body the way a shadow suggests the thing casting it. It stood—or hovered—about ten feet away from Todd, and the light it gave off was warm. Not hot. Not blinding. Just… warm. Like afternoon sunlight through a window.
Todd stared at it for a long time.
"…What are you?"
"You may call me the Arbiter."
"The Arbiter," Todd repeated flatly.
"Correct."
"Like from Halo?"
The golden figure tilted what might have been its head. "No."
"Because you look like you could be from Halo."
"I am not from Halo."
"You sure? Because—"
"Todd."
The voice didn't get louder. It didn't need to. There was a weight to it that pressed against Todd's chest like a palm, gentle but firm, and it shut him up mid-sentence. Not out of fear. Out of the sudden, gut-level understanding that this thing—whatever it was—was real. That this wasn't a dream. That the warm void and the golden figure and the impossible silence of this place were all real, and that the life he'd been living five minutes ago was over.
Todd swallowed hard.
"I'm dead," he said. Not a question.
"Yes."
"How?"
"Cardiac event. Undiagnosed arrhythmia. You were dead before your body reached the mattress."
Todd opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"That's… that's how I went out? A heart attack? I'm twenty-two!"
"Age is not a prerequisite for cardiac failure."
"Man, that's—" Todd dragged both hands down his face. "That's the most boring death in history. I didn't even get to finish my chapter. I was on a cliffhanger."
"I am sorry for your loss."
"Are you being sarcastic right now?"
"I am incapable of sarcasm."
Todd squinted at the glowing figure. "Somehow I don't believe that."
The Arbiter said nothing. It simply waited, radiating that same patient warmth, like a campfire that had nowhere to be.
Todd took a breath. Then another. He looked down at his hands—his very real, very solid hands—and then back up at the golden shape in front of him.
"Okay," he said quietly. "Okay. I'm dead. Cool. So what is this? Heaven? Hell? Purgatory? Some kind of processing center?"
"None of those. This is the In-Between. A transitional space. You are here because you have been selected."
"Selected for what?"
"Reincarnation."
The word landed like a brick.
Todd went completely still. His brain—which had been running on a combination of shock, adrenaline, and pure personality—suddenly kicked into a different gear. He knew that word. He knew it very well. He'd read hundreds of stories built on exactly this premise. Isekai. Reincarnation. Transmigration. Truck-kun sends you to another world, you get a cheat power, you build a harem and fight demon lords.
He'd written fanfiction about this.
"Hold on," Todd said slowly. "Reincarnation. As in… I get sent to another world?"
"Correct."
"With powers?"
"Potentially."
"And I get to keep my memories?"
"Yes. Your consciousness, your personality, your memories—all will remain intact."
Todd's heart—or whatever passed for a heart in this void—started hammering. The grief and the shock and the disbelief were still there, sitting heavy in his chest, but something else was rising alongside them. Something electric.
This is real. This is actually real. This is actually happening.
"Okay," Todd said, and his voice was steadier now. Focused. "Okay. How does it work? Do I get to pick where I go? Do I get to pick my power?"
"No," the Arbiter said. "You do not pick. You spin."
"I spin?"
The Arbiter raised one hand—a limb of solid light, featureless and smooth—and gestured to its right.
Something appeared.
It was a wheel.
Massive. Easily fifteen feet in diameter. Floating upright in the void like a game show prop designed by God. The frame was dark metal, almost black, and the surface was divided into dozens of colored segments, each one bearing a name written in clean white text. Todd stepped closer, his eyes scanning the options.
His stomach dropped.
Naruto. One Piece. Bleach. My Hero Academia. Attack on Titan. Jujutsu Kaisen. Demon Slayer. Hunter x Hunter. Dragon Ball. Fullmetal Alchemist.
And others. Dozens of others. Some he recognized immediately. Some he'd only heard of. Some he'd never seen before in his life.
"These are all anime worlds," Todd breathed.
"Fictional universes, yes. Each one a fully realized reality within the In-Between's jurisdiction."
Todd's eyes were racing across the wheel. His mind was already calculating. Naruto—good, I know the plot inside and out. One Piece—solid, but long as hell. My Hero—easy mode if I get a good quirk. Dragon Ball—busted power scaling but I could work with it…
"Which one do I want," he muttered to himself, rubbing his chin. "Which one do I—"
"You do not choose, Todd. You spin."
Todd looked back at the Arbiter. "So it's random?"
"Entirely."
"I don't get any say?"
"The wheel decides."
Todd stared at the wheel again. His jaw tightened. Random. Completely random. He could land on something golden—or he could land on something that would get him killed in a week.
He spotted Attack on Titan on one of the segments and felt his blood pressure spike.
"And if I land somewhere that's basically a death sentence?"
"Then you adapt. Or you die again. Permanently, this time."
Todd let out a slow breath through his nose. "You got great bedside manner, you know that?"
"I have been told."
"That was sarcasm."
"I am aware."
"You said you couldn't be sarcastic."
"I said I was incapable. I did not say I could not recognize it in others."
Todd stared at the Arbiter for a long moment, then shook his head. "Man, whatever. Let's do this."
He stepped up to the wheel. It was even bigger up close—towering over him, the segments gleaming softly in the void's ambient light. There was a peg at the top that would catch the dividers as the wheel spun, and a small handle protruding from the right side of the frame.
Todd reached for the handle.
He stopped.
"Wait. One question."
"Ask."
"If I land on something I know—like, if I land on Naruto and I know the whole plot—can I use that knowledge? Change things?"
"Your memories are your own. What you do with them is your business. The worlds are real. The people in them are real. The consequences of your actions will be real. Beyond that, there are no rules."
Todd nodded slowly. That was good. That was very good. If he landed somewhere familiar, he could game the system. Avoid the pitfalls. Position himself perfectly.
Please be Naruto, he thought. Or My Hero. Or One Piece. Something I know. Something I can work with.
He gripped the handle.
He pulled.
The wheel spun.
II.
The sound it made was something between a helicopter blade and a shuffling deck of cards—a rapid, rhythmic clack-clack-clack-clack as the peg at the top caught each divider in succession. The colors blurred together into a swirling ring of light. Todd stood back and watched it spin, his hands balled into fists at his sides, his jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached.
Naruto. My Hero. One Piece. Naruto. My Hero. One Piece.
He chanted it in his head like a prayer, like if he thought it hard enough the universe would bend to his will.
The wheel began to slow.
Clack… clack… clack…
The colors separated. Names became legible again. Todd leaned forward, his eyes locked on the peg, tracking which segment was about to stop beneath it.
Clack… clack…
It passed Naruto.
Todd's heart sank.
Clack…
It passed My Hero Academia.
No. No, no, no—
Clack.
The wheel stopped.
The segment sitting directly beneath the peg was a dark, muted red—almost the color of dried blood. And written across it in clean white text were two words:
TOKYO GHOUL
Todd stared at it.
The silence in the void was absolute.
"…What?" he whispered.
"Tokyo Ghoul," the Arbiter confirmed. "A world in which creatures called ghouls—beings that appear human but feed on human flesh—exist alongside the human population. The Commission of Counter Ghoul, or CCG, serves as the primary human organization dedicated to combating the ghoul threat."
Todd wasn't listening. He was still staring at the wheel, his expression cycling through a rapid series of emotions—disbelief, confusion, frustration, and then something close to panic.
"I don't know this one," he said.
"Pardon?"
"I don't know this one!" Todd repeated, louder now, turning to face the Arbiter. "I never watched it! I never read it! I know the name—I know it's about, like, ghouls eating people and some dude gets turned into a half-ghoul or something—but I don't know the plot! I don't know the characters! I don't know anything!"
"That is unfortunate."
"Unfortunate?! That's all you got?! I'm about to get dropped into a world full of man-eating monsters and I'm going in blind!"
"Many reincarnated individuals enter their new worlds without foreknowledge. It is not uncommon."
"I don't care about the statistics, man!" Todd was pacing now, his hands on his head, his voice pitching higher with every sentence. "I had a whole plan! Land somewhere I know, use my meta-knowledge, play it smart! Now I got nothing! I'm walking in cold!"
The Arbiter waited.
Todd paced.
The silence stretched.
Eventually, Todd stopped. He stood still in the void, breathing hard, his hands dropping to his sides. He closed his eyes.
Okay. Okay. Think. Stop panicking and think.
He didn't know Tokyo Ghoul. Fine. That meant no meta-knowledge, no cheat sheet, no way to predict what was coming. He'd have to learn the world the hard way—through experience, observation, and trial and error.
That sucked. But it wasn't a death sentence. Not yet. Not if—
"The second wheel," Todd said, opening his eyes. "You said there's a second spin. For powers."
"Correct."
"So even if I don't know the world, if I get a strong enough power, I can survive."
"That is one possibility."
Todd turned to face the Arbiter fully. "Show me the second wheel."
The first wheel dissolved—its massive frame collapsing into particles of light that scattered and vanished like embers. In its place, a second wheel materialized. Same size. Same dark metal frame. But the segments on this one were different.
Todd scanned them quickly.
Devil Fruit (One Piece). Quirk (My Hero Academia). Nen (Hunter x Hunter). Cursed Energy (Jujutsu Kaisen). Sacred Gear (High School DxD). Zanpakuto (Bleach).
And more. Dozens more. Power systems from across every anime and comic universe Todd had ever consumed.
His eyes locked onto one segment near the bottom of the wheel.
Compound V (The Boys).
Todd's breath caught.
Compound V. He knew Compound V. He knew it intimately. He'd watched every season of The Boys. He'd read the comics. He'd spent hours debating power tiers and ability sets online. Compound V was the drug that created Supes—superhumans with abilities ranging from basic physical enhancement to reality-warping insanity.
The thing about Compound V was the spread. On the low end, you got the base package: strength, speed, durability, healing. Solid. Useful. Not flashy. On the high end? You got Homelander. You got Starlight. You got people who could fly, shoot lasers from their eyes, manipulate matter at a molecular level.
But you didn't get to choose. The V gave you what the V gave you, and you dealt with it.
If I land on Compound V, Todd thought, I at least know what I'm working with. I know the floor. The floor is super-soldier. That's survivable. That's workable. But the ceiling…
The ceiling was limitless.
"Alright," Todd said. He flexed his fingers. Rolled his neck. Stepped up to the second wheel. "Round two."
"Spin when ready."
Todd grabbed the handle. He didn't hesitate this time. Didn't pray. Didn't chant. He just pulled—hard—and let the wheel rip.
CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK—
The wheel screamed. The segments blurred. Todd stood back and watched, his expression flat, his arms crossed over his chest.
Whatever happens, happens. I'm done begging.
The wheel slowed.
Clack… clack… clack…
Todd watched the peg.
Clack… clack…
His eyes narrowed.
Clack.
The wheel stopped.
The segment was a bright, almost electric blue. And written across it, in bold white text:
COMPOUND V (THE BOYS)
Todd didn't move for five full seconds.
Then he erupted.
"LET'S GO!" He threw both fists in the air, his voice cracking off the walls of the void—walls that didn't exist but somehow bounced his shout back at him anyway. "COMPOUND V, BABY! LET'S GOOOOO!"
He was pacing again, but this time with energy, with fire, his hands gesturing wildly as he talked to himself at full volume.
"Okay—okay okay okay—Compound V. I know this. I know this. Base package is guaranteed: strength, speed, durability, healing, senses. That alone puts me above any normal human. In a world full of ghouls? That's huge. That's massive. I can work with that."
He spun to face the Arbiter, pointing at the golden figure like he was accusing it of something.
"But that ain't all. There's a chance—a real chance—I get something extra. A unique ability. Something on top of the base package. If I get even one additional power, I'm not just surviving—I'm thriving."
"You understand, of course, that the unique ability—if one manifests—is entirely random. You may receive something extraordinary. You may receive nothing beyond the baseline."
"Yeah, I hear you," Todd said, waving a dismissive hand. "But I'm not worried about the floor. The floor is good. The floor is enough. Anything extra is just gravy."
He paused. Then, quieter: "But God, please let there be gravy."
"The injection will be painful," the Arbiter said, as if this were important.
"I know."
"Extremely painful."
"I know."
"You will lose consciousness."
"Bruh, I know. I've seen the show. Kids' eyeballs pop out. Their bones break. They scream until they can't scream anymore. Trust me—I know what Compound V does to a body." Todd took a breath and set his jaw. "But it also makes you superhuman. And in a world where things eat people, I'll take every edge I can get."
The Arbiter regarded him silently for a long moment. Then it raised its hand.
A small glass vial materialized in midair between them. It was about four inches long, filled with a luminous blue liquid that seemed to glow from within—pulsing softly, almost rhythmically, like a heartbeat.
Beside it, a syringe appeared. Clinical. Steel. Ready.
"Upon your materialization in the Tokyo Ghoul world, this vial and syringe will appear with you. The injection is yours to administer at will. Once injected, the compound will bond with your cellular structure permanently. The process cannot be reversed."
Todd reached out and took the vial. It was warm in his palm. The liquid inside swirled lazily, and up close, he could see tiny motes of light drifting through it like bioluminescent plankton.
"Beautiful," he murmured. Then he looked up. "So how does the drop work? I just… appear?"
"You will materialize in the United States of America. A major city. Your identity—name, background, legal documentation—will be fabricated and integrated into the world's systems. You will appear as a seventeen-year-old orphan. No family. No connections. No history beyond what the records show."
"Seventeen?" Todd frowned. "I was twenty-two."
"Your physical body will be reconstructed at seventeen. Your mind will retain its full maturity and memories."
"So I'm a grown man in a teenager's body."
"Essentially."
Todd considered this. Then shrugged. "Could be worse. At least I'll be in my prime."
"Is there anything else you wish to know before departure?"
Todd looked around the void one last time. White nothing in every direction. No walls, no floor, no sky. Just the warm golden glow of the Arbiter and the cold blue pulse of the vial in his hand.
He thought about Baltimore. His apartment. His laptop. The half-eaten bag of Hot Cheetos on his bed. The light novel he'd never finish. The life that had ended without warning or ceremony on a random Tuesday afternoon.
Something tightened in his chest.
"…Nah," he said quietly. "I'm good."
"Then I wish you well, Todd Williams. The In-Between releases you."
The golden light flared.
The void collapsed.
And Todd fell.
III.
He hit asphalt.
Not gently. Not like being placed. He hit it—hard enough to knock the wind out of his lungs, hard enough to split the skin on his palms, hard enough that for a horrifying second he thought every bone in his body had shattered on impact.
Todd gasped, rolling onto his side, his vision swimming. Above him, the sky was dark—not void-dark, but night dark. Real dark. Streetlights. Stars. The faint orange glow of city light pollution painting the underbellies of scattered clouds.
He was in an alley. Narrow. Brick walls on either side, blackened with age and grime. A dumpster to his left. The distant sound of traffic—horns, engines, the white-noise hum of a city that never fully shut up.
Todd pushed himself to his knees. His palms were bleeding. His hoodie was torn at the shoulder. His whole body ached like he'd been dropped from a rooftop.
"Damn," he wheezed. "Could've been a softer landing…"
He looked down at his hands. Younger. His fingers were slightly thinner, his palms slightly smaller. He touched his face—same features, but tighter. Fresher. No stubble. The face of a seventeen-year-old.
Then he saw the vial.
It was lying on the asphalt next to him, unbroken, still pulsing with that soft blue light. The syringe was beside it, still sealed in its sterile packaging.
Todd picked up the vial. The warmth was still there, radiating through the glass into his fingertips.
This is it. Right now. No hesitation.
He knew what Compound V did. He'd seen the footage—fictional footage, sure, but the Arbiter had confirmed these worlds were real. The injection would rewrite his biology. Every cell, every strand of DNA, every muscle fiber and neural pathway would be torn apart and rebuilt. It would feel like dying all over again.
But on the other side of that pain was power. Real power. The kind that could keep him alive in a world where monsters wore human faces and ate people in the dark.
Todd tore open the syringe packaging with his teeth. He uncapped the vial, drew the blue liquid into the syringe, and held it up. The needle caught the streetlight and gleamed.
"No hesitation," he said aloud.
He found a vein in the crook of his left arm.
He pushed the plunger.
For exactly one second, nothing happened.
Then it hit.
Todd's entire body locked up. Every muscle contracted simultaneously—not tightening, seizing, like someone had run a live current through his skeleton. His back arched off the ground. His jaw clamped shut so hard he felt a molar crack. His vision went white, then red, then black, cycling through colors that shouldn't exist, colors that had no name.
The pain was beyond anything he could have imagined. Beyond any reference point his mind could cling to. It wasn't localized—it was everywhere, in every cell, in every atom, a molecular fire that burned through him from the inside out. He could feel his bones shifting, his muscles tearing and re-knitting, his skin splitting along invisible seams and stitching itself back together stronger, denser, different.
He screamed.
He didn't mean to. He'd told himself he wouldn't. But the sound ripped out of him involuntarily—raw and animal and loud, bouncing off the brick walls of the alley and echoing into the night.
His fingers clawed at the asphalt, gouging furrows into the pavement. Not scratching—gouging. His fingertips tore through concrete like wet clay, and some distant corner of his fading consciousness registered that fact with dull amazement.
It's already working. It's already—
Another wave of pain. Worse than the first. His vision fractured into static. He could feel something building inside him—something hot and electric, something that wasn't just physical enhancement. It was gathering in his chest, in his gut, in the spaces between his cells, a pressure that hummed and crackled and demanded release.
Something extra. There's something extra. Oh God, there's something—
The pressure exploded.
A burst of blue-white energy detonated outward from Todd's body. It wasn't massive—maybe a six-foot radius—but it was violent. The dumpster beside him was thrown sideways, crashing into the far wall with enough force to fold it in half. The asphalt beneath him cracked in a spiderweb pattern. The streetlight at the mouth of the alley flickered, buzzed, and died.
Then silence.
Todd lay on his back in the shattered remains of the alley floor, staring up at the sky. His body was still twitching—small involuntary spasms running through his limbs like aftershocks. His vision was blurry. His ears were ringing. He could taste copper.
But beneath the pain, beneath the exhaustion, beneath the fading tremors, he could feel it.
Power.
Not just the baseline. Not just strength and speed and durability. Something more. Something electric and alive and thrumming in his bones like a second heartbeat.
A smile cracked across his bloody lips.
"Gravy," he whispered.
Then his eyes rolled back, and he passed out.
IV.
Twelve hours later, Todd woke up.
He was still in the alley. Morning light slanted through the gap between the buildings, painting a bright stripe across his chest. Birds were singing somewhere. A car horn blared in the distance.
Todd sat up slowly. The pain was gone—completely gone, as if it had never existed. His palms, which had been bleeding and torn the night before, were smooth and unmarked. The cracked molar in his jaw had healed. Even his hoodie was still intact, despite the explosion.
The healing factor, he thought. Already active.
He stood up and took stock. His body felt… different. Not heavier, not lighter. Just more. Like someone had turned up the resolution on his existence. He could feel the texture of the asphalt through the soles of his shoes. He could hear a conversation happening two blocks away—a woman on her phone, something about picking up her kid from school. He could smell the coffee brewing in a shop somewhere to his left, and beneath it, the fainter smell of grease, gasoline, and rain-damp concrete.
Enhanced senses. Check.
He flexed his right hand. The muscles in his forearm tightened with a strength he could feel all the way to the bone—dense, coiled, ready. He looked at the dumpster he'd thrown with his unconscious detonation the night before. It was crumpled against the far wall, folded nearly in half.
Superhuman strength. Check.
He looked at the cracked asphalt beneath his feet. The spiderweb fractures radiated outward from where he'd been lying, and at the center, the concrete was scorched. Blackened in a perfect circle, with faint blue-white residue still flickering at the edges.
And that… that's the extra.
Todd raised his right hand palm-up. He focused—not hard, not straining, just directed his attention inward, toward that humming, electric pressure he could feel sitting behind his sternum.
A crackle of blue-white energy arced between his fingers. Small. Controlled. It danced across his knuckles like static electricity, but brighter, hotter, and decidedly not static. He could feel the heat of it, the vibration, the raw potential sitting just beneath the surface.
Bio-electric energy generation.
His unique ability.
Todd closed his fist and the energy dissipated. He stared at his hand for a long time, a slow grin spreading across his face.
"Okay, Tokyo Ghoul," he said to the empty alley. "I don't know your plot. I don't know your characters. I don't know what's coming."
He slid his hands into his pockets and rolled his neck.
"But I'm here now. And I came correct."
He turned and walked toward the mouth of the alley, stepping out into the sunlight of a city he didn't recognize yet—a city full of humans and monsters and a war between them that he didn't understand.
But he would.
One way or another, he would.
V.
Three weeks later.
Todd Williams learned three things very quickly about the Tokyo Ghoul universe.
First: ghouls were real, and they were everywhere.
Not openly, of course. They hid. They blended. They walked the streets and rode the trains and sat in coffee shops and smiled at strangers, and beneath those smiles were mouths that craved human flesh. Todd had seen it firsthand during his second week in the world—a news report on the TV mounted in the corner of a McDonald's, detailing a string of "ghoul attacks" in the downtown area of the city he'd landed in: New York.
The reporter had spoken about it with the same detached gravity that reporters back home used when covering serial killers or terrorist attacks. Ghoul attacks were normal here. Expected. A feature of the world, not a bug.
Second: the CCG existed, and they were recruiting.
The Commission of Counter Ghoul. He'd found their recruitment posters on his third day in the city—clean, professional, plastered to the walls of subway stations and bus stops. PROTECT HUMANITY. JOIN THE CCG. They were the world's frontline defense against the ghoul threat: a government-funded paramilitary organization staffed by trained investigators who hunted and killed ghouls using specialized weapons called quinques.
Todd didn't know much about quinques yet. But he knew they were made from ghoul biology, and he knew they were the only weapons that could reliably hurt a ghoul.
Third: he needed a plan.
He was seventeen. He was alone. He had no money, no connections, no knowledge of this world's history or power structure. What he did have was a body full of Compound V, a fabricated identity that would hold up under scrutiny, and a brain full of twenty-two years' worth of experience from another life.
That was enough. It had to be enough.
The CCG's American branch—formally known as the CCG North American Division—was headquartered in a massive brutalist building in Lower Manhattan. Thirty floors of reinforced concrete and bulletproof glass, flying the CCG's flag alongside the American flag, with armed security at every entrance and investigators in long white coats moving through the lobby like ghosts.
Todd stood outside the building on a Wednesday morning, a lollipop in his mouth and his sunglasses perched on his nose, staring up at the facade.
"Ugly building," he said to nobody.
He walked inside.
The lobby was exactly what he expected: sterile, efficient, and designed to remind you that this was a place of war. The floors were polished concrete. The walls were bare except for framed portraits of senior investigators and a large plaque listing the names of CCG personnel killed in action. The list was long.
Todd approached the front desk, where a woman in a crisp uniform was typing on a computer. She didn't look up.
"Can I help you?"
"Yeah," Todd said, leaning on the counter. "I'm here to sign up."
She looked up. Her eyes flicked over him—the sunglasses, the lollipop, the loose-fitting hoodie, the general air of a teenager who had wandered in off the street.
"Sign up for what?"
"The CCG. The academy. Whatever you call it. I want to be an investigator."
The woman stared at him for a long moment. Then she reached under the counter and produced a clipboard with a stack of forms attached.
"You'll need to fill out an application. Age requirement is sixteen. Do you have a guardian's signature?"
"I'm an orphan."
"Then you'll need to provide proof of legal emancipation or ward-of-state documentation."
"Got it right here." Todd reached into the back pocket of his jeans and produced a folded envelope. Inside was a complete set of fabricated documents: birth certificate, social security card, emancipation papers, school transcripts, medical records. All courtesy of whatever cosmic bureaucracy the Arbiter had set up before dropping him into this world.
The woman took the envelope, flipped through the documents, and raised an eyebrow.
"Todd Williams. Seventeen. Baltimore, Maryland." She looked at him over the tops of her glasses. "Long way from home."
"Ain't got a home," Todd said, crunching the lollipop between his teeth. "That's kind of the point."
The woman studied him for another moment, then placed the clipboard on the counter.
"Fill out the application. Aptitude testing is every first Monday of the month. If you pass the written exam and the physical assessment, you'll be eligible for enrollment in the next academy cycle." She paused. "The physical assessment is demanding. Most applicants fail it."
Todd grinned. "I'm not most applicants."
"They all say that."
"Yeah, but they aren't me."
The woman's expression didn't change. She pointed to a row of chairs against the wall.
"Have a seat, Mr. Williams. And take the lollipop out of your mouth. This is a federal building."
Todd looked at her. Looked at the lollipop stick poking out from between his lips. Looked back at her.
He did not remove the lollipop.
He took the clipboard and sat down.