NOVEL NEXT Chapter 283
The problem with being an introvert is that, short of communicating that detail explicitly, most people won’t intuitively pick up that you are one. There are markers and coinciding behaviors, sure, but almost all of them can-slash-will be misinterpreted as dislike, disinterest, snobbery, or standoffishness. Before the dome my solution to this issue was simple: keep my head down, act like I’m in a hurry—in most cases, I usually was—and be polite yet short with anyone who approached me.
To some extent that still worked. At least until the end of the last transposition event, when I was unexpectedly thrust into a highly visible leadership role. I tried to make it clear it was the Adventurer’s Guild and Merchant’s Guild that were more or less calling the shots with region management. But, that didn’t seem to matter. People around the region would linger by my building to catch me for a quick conversation. Some wanted something. More perplexing were the ones that didn’t have an agenda at all. I got the sense that they were curious or simply wanted to be acknowledged by a person who seemed relatively ordinary and had some degree of control over their daily lives. It could be difficult to manage, especially after a long day when I wanted to do nothing but flop into bed and surrender to the void.
Apparently it was time to batten down the hatches. Because something I’d learned within minutes of stepping out of my Prius and heading into the building was that, even late at night, leading three, goofy looking dogs around notched the introvert setting all the way up to hard mode.
“So cute!” An old man ruffled the pure-white husky’s face. “And such intelligent eyes as well.”
“Yep.”
I eyed the path to the elevator, where another woman blocked my way, petting the larger female dog, several more people crowded around behind her. “Where did these sweet babies come from?”
“Boarding them for a friend.”
A father with terrible paternal instincts who carried a small child bent down so her face was inches from the largest dog, a black-tan mix that was mostly black. “Doggy!” She giggled excitedly, thrusting small fingers into the animal’s nose.
When a nascent growl started in the dog’s throat, I reached out to him with
“What are the doggies' names?” The child asked, unbothered.
Uh.
If I’d known there was going to be a test, I would have studied. As it was, I settled for cheating and scanned the dogs’ tags discreetly. “The white one’s name is Ghee, brown-and-white is Marmalade, black is Truffle.”
Thanks for that, Jinny.
With growing despair, I watched as more people emerged from the elevators with plans for the night while others returning home for the evening cut off any avenue of retreat. Even if I was direct as possible it was going to take hours to extricate myself from this and I could see my fantasies of a long, uninterrupted sleep slowly slipping away. Someone stepped forward from behind, well within my personal space, and, before I could react, wrapped their arms around me. Something soft pressed against my cheek, followed by a smacking noise. “Ditching our plans to show off your new pals?”
Tara’s timing was impeccable. She slipped her arm through mine with casual intimacy, looking at our many observers with bemusement, and giving me the out I’d been looking for.
“Never.” I squeezed her arm and smiled. “But I should get these guys settled first. They’ve had an exciting day.”
“They’re not the only ones. Heard things at the tower were rough today. Surprised you’re not dead on your feet.” To anyone else, it sounded like an innocuous comment. But I didn’t miss the way she projected slightly, ensuring her voice carried to everyone else around us.
“We should get out of your hair.” The old man stopped petting Ghee and stood straight, hand on the small of his back.
“It’s no bother.” I assured him, hoping he ignored that for the pleasantry it was, feeling nothing but relief when he did. The crowd dwindled until there was enough of an opening that Tara could pull me away. I let her lead, quietly reviewing how easily she’d extracted me from the situation, pondering if I would have been capable of doing the same thing. I wasn’t sure I could. The innate awkwardness I felt with others—especially when I didn’t fully understand why they were there and what they wanted—was just something Tara didn’t share. She had a way of defusing people, communicating important information without being direct or creating conflict.
I eyed her as the elevator slid shut. “Just happened to be nearby, huh?”
She’s hiding something.
Even worse, she seems to think whatever she’s keeping to herself is incredibly funny. My title chuckled in the back of my mind, uncharacteristically slow to provide useful information. A slow anger started in my chest, spreading out to the rest of me until my fingers tingled. I’d been suspicious of Tara from the start, but that suspicion had faded quickly. Now it was back, alongside the realization that whatever this was, I was being played.
“Well, I got off an hour ago, figured my not-boyfriend was probably on his way home and waited for him.” She played with a lock of hair idly, giving me the same come-hither smile she’d maintained for most of our “date.”
Everything she’s saying is true, from a technicality standpoint. If that’s her preferred way to lie it makes sense that your other titles would have difficulty picking it up.
“And now you’re following him to his suite. A more chaste person might wonder what your intentions are.” I said, taking a few steps closer and narrowing our proximity until I could feel her breath on my cheek.
Instead of reacting negatively, Tara shivered. “Well, I… saved you. Don’t deny it, they might not have noticed you getting ready to run out the door at a moment’s notice, but I sure as hell did. Provided a service. And as I’m not officially on payroll yet, it’s only right to pay me some other way.”
“Like?” I raised an eyebrow.
Tara let the tension linger for just a while longer before she spoke. “I want to see your place.”
“Okay. Why?”
“It helps.” She glanced down at the dogs. “They’re adorable by the way. Not to mention a great first step in making your public image less mercurial, but if you’re serious about putting me to work as a PR consultant, it helps if I have a foundation to draw from. Need to get a better sense for who you are as a person. I could probably get that just from talking to you, eventually, but there’s no better shortcut for getting to know someone than seeing how they live.”
Still not entirely accurate to her motivations, according to my title, but the substance of what she’d said was dead-on. Breaking into the home or quarters of a powerful User almost always provided key insights to their routine, their agenda, and their psychology. If I was hunting someone stronger than me, it was absolutely necessary.
The prospect would have worried me more if I hadn’t already tangled with feds in a world that operated without warrants. Everything was locked down tight. Any critical records or documentation were kept off-site. I’d even arranged the place strictly according to Feng Shui to throw off the pseudo-science types. If anything, it was psychopathically clean, but all that could realistically be read from that was that I was a stickler.
My heart skipped a beat. What the fuck?
My pulse quickened. At first I thought my comms were being shuttered by a new, more subtle form of
I spent the rest of the elevator ride messaging everyone else that mattered, getting the same error message over and over. Regardless, I kept trying. Because if it wasn’t something interfering with comms, everyone in my circle was either off-line—which I couldn’t imagine any circumstance where that would happen simultaneously—
Or dead.
Out of everyone, Miles responded just as the elevator opened.
I stopped mid-step a few units away, staring down at the black space beneath my doorway. Because it shouldn’t be dark. I always left the bathroom light on, and the bathroom door open. It should have been visible from beneath the door. There were any number of people who had access and could have stopped by, turned the light off, and left, but there were too many things adding up in ways that clawed at the back of my mind. I reached into my inventory and withdrew the remote, toggling the lights on.
“Something wrong?” Tara asked, noticing my hesitance and cocking her head.
“Dunno. Just… got a little dizzy.” I leaned against the wall, buying time.
It was only a matter of time until this happened. A single missed camera or overlooked tail was all it took. I tried to imagine how they would do it. Put myself in their shoes. Team of four, minimum. Three if they were all heavy hitters. Question was, where to put them? There wasn’t much cover in my suite. The couch on the back wall was the obvious choice, and could work in a pinch, but magically enhanced bolts and arrows—which they’d expect—could penetrate it easily. They’d place a ranged User there, but they’d want others nearby to stop me from running or firing back as quickly as possible. The wide-open space in the center left two options, and if they were smart, they’d pick both. One in the bathroom, one posted up next to the door.
Three down. Now where was the fourth?
It wasn’t Tara. Even if she was a special class, none of my titles, detection abilities, or even Azure had picked up the slightest suspicion that she posed a threat. No one was that airtight. Most likely, her role was to distract and deliver me. A second shooter fit the scenario better than another melee, and the only reasonable cover left beyond the couch was off to the right side, behind the kitchen island.
In any case they’d want the lights off for this. The hallway was brightly lit, and they’d want to strike during the short transition from bright to dark, when my vision would be worse. They’d need to account for mess, which meant someone capable of creating an instance if they were thorough, a thick sheet of plastic on the floor if they lacked greater resources. Either way, any second now…
Like clockwork, the lights in my suite switched off.
I angled carefully, going down on a knee to retie my shoe, shoving broken legacy—and Talia, contained within it—beneath the door.
“How’s it look in there?” I reached out to my summon through our mental connection.
“Matt, you alright?” Tara peered down at me. “You seem off today.”
“Yeah.” I made a show of looking for my key. “Just can't get something out of my head. There was this unaffiliated merchant kid Kinsley was gonna bring into the fold. James, Jim, something old school. At first everything seemed more or less copacetic. Popped up at an ideal time, had a corner on key resources Kinsley’s been lacking for a while. Seemed flexible enough in negotiations, but not so flexible he was a pushover.”
“Sure,” Tara said, following along.
“Then he got desperate. Starting pushing for things to move quicker—which didn’t at all make sense in context, cause, so far as we knew, he was already getting everything he wanted. So she had someone look into him and then it all fell apart.”
“Talia.”
Again, no answer. That was somehow more alarming than the lights.
“The kid was trying to rip her off somehow?” Tara asked.
“Sort of. Some of it was true. He was a merchant. But he wasn’t at all unaffiliated. Those key resources weren’t his. They were held by another group of merchants that gave Kinsley the finger, regretted it, and were planning to use the kid as an alternate pipeline for selling on the online market.”
“Geez. That sucks for Kinsley. In that situation and the greater context. Always having to question peoples’ agendas when they approach you.”
“Sucks for everyone.” I agreed. “But especially the kid. Because Kinsley’s literally been where he was, you know? A kid with shit people want to take and no way to give it without payment. It’s a bad situation, and Kinsley knows that better than anyone. She probably would have brought him in even if the only thing he had stocked was toothpaste. But as he was beholden to another group—one prone to poor decisions—they put pressure on him, and because of that, instead of using his best judgment, he rushed and ended up fumbling the bag for everyone.”
And here I thought we were making progress. It was obvious he was lying immediately, before my title started crowing falsehood. Nothing about it made sense. Et tu, Miles?
“Tragic. But for how messy everything post-dome has been, the chain of events is oddly fable-like.” Tara observed, smile ebbing slightly. “It even has a moral at the end.”
Fuck you, I had seconds to come up with it.
Problems rarely resolved themselves. And if Tara was a problem now, almost guaranteed she’d be a problem later. But for some reason—maybe her greater hustle and sense of drive I’d connected with, maybe because she also had a kid that wasn’t hers that she’d nevertheless taken responsibility for—I wanted to give her the chance to reconsider.
“Do you want to go somewhere else?” I asked, point blank.
“Matt. We’re literally already here. And it’s late, where would we even go?”
“My place is pretty bare, and I haven’t cleaned in a while. Wafflehouse is always open, unless that’s beneath your palate. The boba place closes at three. And if you’re not hungry or thirsty… we could always go to yours.” I said knowing what that implied. Implying it anyway, because it would tempt her, even as the thought made me nauseous.
A silent communication passed between us, and Tara cocked her head as if trying to pick up an almost imperceptible frequency nested in my offer. “Not a great idea. Any other day, I’d be down. But if we go now, I’ll start to wonder. What, exactly, was in Matt’s suite that day he was trying so hard to keep it secret?”
“Not hiding anything.” I grunted.
“Maybe not. But I’d wonder.” Tara insisted.
It was a solid reversal, one that effectively slapped away my olive branch and strengthened her position, narrowing my options to one. Between the contingencies scattered around my suite and my experience being on the other side of this exact sort of ambush, that even with Talia out of play, I felt confident I could handle the immediate threat. It was everything that came after that was the big, blinking question mark.
Screw it. Not happy, but not seeing any other way, I dropped the dogs’ leashes—it was a closed floor, so short of someone opening the fire-escape or escorting them down the elevator, they’d be out of danger and couldn’t wander far. Before Tara could react, I turned the lights back on.
Unlatched the door.
And threw it open.