NOVEL NEXT Chapter 91: Patsy
“So, what exactly was the Society’s true goal in this takeover?” Lilith asked, looking down at the man in front of her. “I find it rather hard to believe that it’s altruistic.”
The man, Eli Dunkley, head of public relations for the Society, shook his head. “It truly is!” He protested. “We wouldn’t even fathom doing this were we not specifically asked to by the people!”
He’s not lying, mistress. Mae said. Or, at least, he doesn’t believe he’s lying.
Lilith frowned. “Tell me about yourself, Eli.”
“W-what?” He asked. “How is that relevant?”
Lilith waved a hand dismissively. “I’m working on a theory.” She said. “I would appreciate it if you tell me, so I won’t have to resort to more invasive mind-reading.”
“This is an invasion of privacy! I can assure you we’ve done nothing to warrant such behavior!”
“You tried to shoot me.” Lilith said. “That in and of itself is enough to warrant a punishment.”
“I…did not!”.
He’s not so sure on this one. Mae said. But…it doesn’t seem to be an outright lie. His memories of the past bit are…foggy. I’m positive someone’s been messing with his mind.
“Unfortunately, I’m afraid you did. Even if you hadn’t, as someone high in the Society’s leadership, you are complicit in this. I am sparing those who are lower in the organization and who I believe have no information or direct involvement, but you definitely don’t meet any of those criteria. I will give you one more chance to cooperate, but should you fail to do so, I will begin doing a deep scan of your brain.”
“Fine.” Eli said. “I’m Eli Dunkley, but you already knew that. I was born in Ohio, and, like everyone else, I was completely oblivious about magic until the Shift. I studied communications at Harvard, and worked in PR for multiple Fortune five hundred companies over the course of my career. A couple of years after the Shift, I was approached by the Society, who wished to hire me as head of PR.”
He’s telling the truth. Mae said. Nuwa’s been looking him up on the internet, and that corroborates what he’s saying.
“And you had no reservations about working for an organization that, just two years prior, had openly been a terrorist organization?” Lilith asked, arching a brow.
“Of course I did!” Eli said indignantly. “I did some serious research on them before I accepted their offer. As you are well aware, most of the old leadership crumbled after the shift, leaving only Chairwoman Inanna. She did some rather extensive purges of the organization, sparing only the more altruistic members. I deliberated for quite a while, and eventually came to the conclusion that they are entirely on the level.”
Again, he believes he’s telling the truth. Mae said.
Alright, I think I know what’s going on here, but I want you to do a deeper scan anyway. Lilith instructed. I don’t think he has any information worth anything, but it can’t hurt to check. Plus, we might be able to find out who was messing with his brain.
Outwardly, Lilith shook her head. “I’m sorry to say you’ve been duped.” She said. “Over the years, I have been keeping an eye on some of the Society’s old leadership, and I can say with complete confidence that the old leadership did not
crumble as the Society claimed. They are still very much around.”“I haven’t seen hide nor hair of them, though!” Eli said. “And I’m in most of the board meetings! Surely I would have known about them by now!”
“Or they wanted a PR manager who wholeheartedly believed the lies they were going to spout.” Lilith said flatly. “Fortunately for you, this means that you’re little more than a peon in the grand scheme of things.” She looked around at the trembling guards. “The rest of you may leave.” She said. “Your presence is not required, and I will not be taking further action against you.”
Hesitantly, the guards began to file out of the room, and after a minute or so, only Eli and Lilith remained. “W…what are you going to do with me?” Eli asked nervously, casting his gaze around the room.
“Nothing.” Lilith said. “I just need you to sit still while I scan your brain. I’m reasonably sure your mind has been tampered with, and I need to figure out who did that and if there is any information in there that you yourself are not aware of. This should be over in ten minutes, so just relax, you’ll be fine. I’m not going to be punishing you, but you are going to be out of a job. I suggest using this time to think about your options.”
“Like I have any options.” Eli said bitterly. “I doubt any reputable company is going to want to hire me after this.”
“That was, perhaps, something you should have thought of before joining the Society.” Lilith said. “If worst comes to worst, you can always find work adventuring.”
Eli made a face. “That’s not exactly suitable work for someone of my talents.”
“Neither is begging, but what you choose to do with your life isn’t my concern. Now, please be silent. I need to focus at least a little for this next part.”
Eli fell silent, leaving Lilith and Mae to poke through his head. As she had expected, there was not much of value within his memories; the Society’s leadership had been very careful about what he had been allowed to hear, and Lilith already knew what little he had been told. The Society had ramped up production of anti-Perfect Chimera weaponry as a way to “even the playing field” and “prevent unreasonable centralization of power”, but the materials they had been using were only half-tested. It had met all benchmarks the Society had, sure, but they had never actually tested it on a Perfect Chimera, mostly due to not having one available to test on.
Still, Mae was telling her that the bullet that had been shot at her looked like it was functional enough, so Lilith was going to operate under the assumption that they had enough of the stuff to put up a semblance of resistance in critical places. Most of the production had, annoyingly, been overseen by people Lilith didn’t have Watches on, so she didn’t have a true grasp of the depths of their reserves, but she doubted the Society would do something so bold if they didn’t have some sort of countermeasure for her.
But, as she poked through Eli’s memories, another possibility started to present itself. The Society was probably getting desperate. Eli had seen a few of the budget reports, and they weren’t exactly looking good for the Society; nowadays, much of their income Eli knew about came from donations, yet the expenditures always seemed to be higher than what they had, and were often in…illogical places.
She had no doubt that they had their hands in some more illicit businesses, but Lilith wasn’t aware of anything on a scale that would provide them with the funds that were required to research anti-Perfect Chimera weapons and then produce that many of them. They had to be relying on savings, and given the amount of time they had been overspending, they were probably starting to run low.
While she was there, Lilith took a look at some of the lingering magics in Eli’s head, but, unfortunately, the magical signature didn’t belong to anyone she had a Watch on, and she had no way of easily or cheaply following the traces back to their source. She could have done it if she was willing to expend the Worship, but it wasn’t important at the moment, so she just let it be. She’d find out who the culprit was in time, and it wasn’t like that sort of magic was any threat to her.
When she was done, she gave Eli one last look. “I’m done.” She said. “I’m going to leave now, and I would highly recommend not getting involved in any shady business in the future. I won’t be this lenient if you incur my wrath a second time.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Eli said, looking down. “Understood.”
Lilith didn’t respond, instead choosing to drop her teleportation blocker and warp back to the dungeon. On her return, she was greeted with the sight of Alex pacing in front of the teleporters, a worried look on her face. “I’m back.” Lilith said. “None the worse for wear.”
“Oh, thank goodness.” Alex breathed, rushing over. “They didn’t have anything that could hurt you there, right?”
Lilith shrugged, pulling out the gun she had taken from Eli. “This has some anti-Perfect Chimera bullets in it. They haven’t been tested on the real deal, but Mae said that they look structurally sound. Still, they were using a mind-controlled amateur to fire this thing, so it wasn’t exactly hard to dodge.”
“Not a guard?” Alex asked, frowning. “That doesn’t seem right.”
“I think they wanted me to drop my guard or something. Unfortunately for them, I was reading the minds of just about everyone in that room and knew what was coming, so it wasn’t hard to deal with.”
She threw the gun into the air, and a hand grew out of the dungeon wall, catching the gun and pulling it into the dungeon. “I’m going to let Nuwa and Raesn take a look at the bullets and see what they can make with them.” She explained. “No sense letting them just go to waste. Anyway, I’m just stopping by for a short snack before I head to my next target. You interested in coming?”
Alex paused briefly, then nodded. “I have to deal with this. For closure, if nothing else.”
“Got it. Go get your gear and be back here in…let’s say ten minutes.”
“Thanks.” Alex said, scampering off towards her room.
While she geared up, Lilith headed towards one of the dungeon’s kitchens, where Mai and Aria were having their dinner. “Have you two been good?” She asked.
“Yup!” Mai said cheerfully, mouth full of food. “We’ve been good!”
“Well…” Aria said. “Mostly.”
“It’s nothing I couldn’t handle.” Eve said, walking into the room. “Just a minor incident.”
“It was Carmen’s fault!” Mai said. “She shoulda known not to try and surprise Aria like that!”
Aria sunk into her seat, face growing red. “I said sorry.” She said. “And I made sure she wasn’t actually hurt.”
Lilith paused, taking a moment to go back through Eve’s memory of the incident. It seemed that Aria had been playing a scary game, and Carmen had tried to scare her by imitating one of the monster’s screams when Aria wasn’t looking.
Unfortunately, Aria still had some habits left over from when she had been Errus, and her instinctual response had been to grab Carmen and throw her across the room. Given that Aria was a Perfect Chimera and was far stronger than she had any right to be, the result of that had been Carmen flying into a table and breaking it.
But, fortunately, Carmen wasn’t a normal girl either. Or…she was, at least when compared to Mai and Aria, but her circumstances were abnormal. Anna and Jameson had taken advantage of the party system to slowly but surely level Carmen up, making her much more durable than she would otherwise be.
So, the only real damage had been to the table, and the moment she realized what was happening, Aria had fixed both it and the bruises and scrapes she had given Carmen. Carmen didn’t seem to have any hard feelings, so Eve had decided there wasn’t a need to give Aria a punishment other than a stern talk.
“You called for me?” Raphi walked into the room and made her way over to Eve. “How can I help?”
“I’m going to go raid a Society base or two. Can you watch these guys while I do?” Eve asked. “Nuwa and Judy are helping with information for this whole thing, so I can’t really ask them, and my parents are out, and I don’t know when they’ll be back. I really just need you to make sure they’re in bed by ten and deal with any arguments, is that okay?”
“Yeah, I can handle that.” Raphi said, giving her a smile. “You can count on me.”
“Good.” Eve said, returning the smile with one of her own. “I’d offer to give you some cash or something, but…well, I don’t keep any on me anymore. Umm…”
“I am your maid.” Raphi pointed out. “I’m pretty sure this is part of the job.”
“And I’m pretty sure being a maid is supposed to come with a salary.” Eve said, frowning. “But now’s not the time to argue about that. We’ll talk more about that later. For now…if you want something, let me know, and I’ll get it for you, as long as it’s reasonable.”
“I’m fine without one.” Raphi said. “You’re essentially paying for my food and room and stuff, so I think that’s plenty, especially when mom and I aren’t technically related to you.”
“That’s different.” Eve said, waving her hand dismissively. “That stuff’s pocket change, it’s really not worth the effort you put in. I…can’t believe I didn’t think about this before. I really need to be rewarding you more.”
“You probably didn’t think about it because Emily and I never brought it up.” Raphi said. “We’re satisfied with how things are now, so we just didn’t mention it.”
Eve sighed. “Right. Well, we’re going to talk about this later and get you properly compensated for your work up until this point, but right now, I need to be going. Thanks again for watching the kids, I really do owe you one.” She didn’t wait for a response, striding out of the room and towards the teleporters out of the dungeon.
While they had talked, Lilith had taken the opportunity to make a sandwich, and was halfway through eating it by the time Eve had left. “Just remember you can stop being a maid any time you want.” Lilith said, putting down the sandwich. “And, seriously, don’t worry about the whole room and board thing. You’re still a kid, and you shouldn’t have to worry about that until you’re older.”
“Thanks for the reminder, but I’m happy with how things are now.” Raphi said, absentmindedly walking over and cleaning up the small bit of jam Lilith had spilled while preparing the sandwich. “It gives me something to do, and it’s not like it’s hard work. Most of the floors and stuff clean themselves, so I just have to deal with the miscellaneous stuff, and almost everyone is tidy. That aside…how are things with you and mom?”
“Going well.” Lilith said. “We’re taking things slow, but I’m optimistic about it.”
“Good to hear.” Raphi said. “She seems a lot happier lately, so…yeah.”
Lilith smiled, ruffling the girl’s hair. “And I’m glad to hear that.” She said, standing up from where she had been sitting. “Thanks for looking after the kids.”
“Not a problem at all.” Raphi said, smiling hugely. “Good luck out there.”
“Won’t be necessary.” Lilith said, giving Raphi a wink. “They really don’t know what they’ve gotten themselves into.”
She walked out of the kitchen and finished her sandwich on her way back to the teleporter. Alex was already there, armor on and a sword strapped to her waist. “You ready?” She asked nervously.
“Don’t be so nervous.” Lilith said, patting Alex’s arm soothingly. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“I know, I just…worry.”
“If things somehow get dicey, we’ll teleport back here immediately, and then they’ll have no way to handle us.” Lilith said. “So just focus on how nice it’ll be once it’s over and you have some closure, and we’ll be done before you know it.”
Alex paused, then gave Lilith a somewhat shaky nod. “Yeah. Let’s get this over with.”