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134 - Re: Green-eyed Demon [Cherno]
🕑 Added 2023-09-15 08:43:53 +0000 UTCSaeed pulled a cable from his arm, slotting its end into a physical slot on the side of Cassius’ head. One which hadn’t been there before. With the grafter’s cold metal fingers resting against his freshly-shaven, sore, stitched-together scalp, he heard the man’s abnormally soft voice echo in his head.
“Don’t try to move, alright? You’re five kinds of fucked up. I had to go digging around in your skull, scoop out and replace what was left of your visual cortex and some other bits. Lucky you, the astral injuries weren’t too severe, and you might fully recover, but expect lapses in memory. There are ways to help repair astral injuries, but… I can’t help you with that. I have neither the tools nor the know-how. A word of warning: I told Semzar that with this visor you would have to switch between a cripplingly near-sighted or far-sighted visual mode, so keep that in mind. I also gave him a remote control which he believes can forcibly trigger the vismode-switch, but its actual function is to ping his location to you, and to show a heads-up message of the fake vismode-switch.”
Cassius managed to turn his head, then tilt it in a questioning manner alongside a questioning grunt.
“I’m a heretic, but Zavyuzz is still my god. It’s just not the version of him the Grafting Church believes in.”
Another questioning grunt.
“Just think what you want to say. It might work.”
“Why would an Apocryphal Fundamentalist ever work for a bunch of baneworms?”
“I’m not a fundamentalist, but close enough. My goal is to kill the lot of them, of course. Every last one. They’re all abominations against Zavyuzz.”
Remaining plugged in, Saeed continued working, tinkering with things. Slowly, elements of a heads-up display flickered into view, and Cassius’ vision sharpened even more.
“Is that why you’re a renegade?” he asked.
“No,” came the answer. “That belief didn’t get me in much trouble at all, funnily enough. Baneworms are only still around because they’re easier to keep in check than they are to exterminate. You never know how they’ll react to a significant change in their surroundings, it’s a truly extreme example of polyphemism. The church finds it easier to keep them under control and do what we- sorry, what they can to slowly reduce their numbers, like the free body deal. So I figured, if I want to wipe them out, I need to work with them to gather data on how that might be achieved, hence… Well, this situation. As for your question, I just left the church of my own volition. A relationship between a man and his god should be personal.”
“Why tell me all this?”
“Who would the Hashems believe? A grafter who has been with the family from the very beginning, or a washed-out fuckup? Besides, if you try to fuck me over I’ll know, and I’ll set off the talisman I wrapped around your brainstem. Don’t worry, only I can do that, so if you don’t try to fuck me, you don’t have to worry about getting your mind blown.”
The sound of approaching footsteps could be heard. Saeed quickly pulled the plug out of Cassius’ head, and stepped in front of him.
“Try and close your eyes. Look at me - don’t blink. That’s a different nerve impulse. Close them. And keep them closed. I need to work on something delicate.”
To his great relief, Cassius’ vision went dark. While he waited in the dark he vaguely felt Saeed rummaging around and smelled solder.
The door opened. The footsteps approached the chair. Semzar’s obnoxious cologne almost instantaneously hit him in the face.
“Well?” he asked Saeed.
“Almost done. Just a moment.”
“Does that mean a minute, or an hour?”
An impatient tone.
Saeed sighed: “A minute if you sit down. An hour if you keep hovering over my shoulder.”
There was not the slightest hint of fear or even respect in his voice. The squeak of a chair being sat on.
“Alright, done. Don’t open your eyes yet,” Saeed said with annoyance in his voice.
Chair squeak. Footsteps.
“Open.”
He saw… Not what he had expected.
It wasn’t Semzar’s insufferable mongrel face.
It was Blackhand.
Rather, a picture of her, a surreal one, like… Like a bad memory rendered from a mind on the verge of breaking. It was the second image the anampictor had dragged out of him, derived from his memory of her smoke-like transformation.
Semzar bent down, just a bit. Cassius felt his stomach turn, and a violent impulse sparked in the back of his head.
“The other one was much more realistic, but this… I really like this one. I’ll frame it, I think,” he said in an entirely earnest tone, one which inadvertently came off as mockery.
“Do you have a title in mind? It’s your hard work, after all.”
“He likely won’t be able to speak yet,” Saeed warned.
Grinding his teeth, Cassius hissed: “Green-eyed Demon.”
The next day, Crescent Jezail received copies of both images alongside the first half of his quoted payment for the Three Shot Special. That was the absolute maximum he was willing to do for a non-trusted client, to prevent any attempts at draining his resources to leave him vulnerable.
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Relieved to finally be able to return to the safehouse, Krahe relished in setting a slow roast before she went out. The oven fortunately had a timer built in, so even if something unforeseen kept her away, it wouldn’t burn. At worst, if she for some reason ended up unable to go back for days, Casus would be the one eating it. She surely hoped that would not be the case after the work she had put into that food, however.
Krahe spent the better part of the next day just laying low in the safehouse, trying to translate Yao’s scroll and get used to the new brush simultaneously. It was written in the language of Tiengenzhen, the script close enough to Chinese which was, at once, a blessing and a curse. It was a laborious process, but at least by undertaking it she achieved both her goals and even gleaned a fair few insights from it already. Besides this, she also got in touch with the owner of the building she had been using until now, querying how much he would want for the property.
