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Chapter 106
🕑 Added 2021-02-20 00:50:17 +0000 UTC[Had ANOTHER kidney stone... Life comes at you fast, people. But after a long wait, here it is, 106.]
Arlette took a deep breath, feeling her chest swell as the air flowed in through her nostrils. She cleared her mind as best she could and concentrated on the illusion in her hands. She had conjured the illusion of a small rock into her hands, and, as per Peko’s instructions, focused intently upon it.
She took in its shape, observing the tiny nooks and crannies, the marbled grey and brown texture, the matte surface. It was exactly as she’d imagined it... which only made sense, as it was an illusion, which by definition was crafted quite literally from her imagination.
“I don’t know what you’re going on about,” she griped to Peko, who lounged decadently in a chair on the far end side of her desk here in her office.
“I told you, yourself with every aspect of that rock. Its look, its sound, its weight, its feel, its smell, all of it.”
“And I told you, it’s an illusion!” she informed him again, exasperated. “It doesn’t have anything to familiarize with outside of the look!”
The bastard flashed her a teasing grin. “That sounds like quitter talk to me.”
The only reason she didn’t smack him was the fact that he was intangible.
“Just help me understand what you’re going for,” she pleaded.
“It’s better if you figure it out on your own”, he replied.
“I’m trying, but it all feels like a waste of time. Like, I can make an illusion of a rock. I can create the sound of a rock hitting things. But how am I supposed to get familiar with the “weight” of an illusion when it isn’t real?! It doesn’t obey any physical rules—no falling to the ground, no interacting with the world, no nothing! Look!”
With a casual flick of her wrist, Arlette threw the rock against the nearby wall of her office and it bounced off the metal, making a loud “clang”... except none of it had actually happened. She had Observed the illusion so that it traveled with the movement of her hand and arced into the wall. Then she Observed a metallic illusory sound as she ricocheted the false rock in the angle that her mind told her would look natural.
“The rock didn’t do that, I did that. It’s just a simulation, bound by hard limitations.”
“Keep at it,” came the reply. “If you really need a push in the future, I’ll see what I can do, but this has to be your journey.”
Arlette rolled her eyes.
“Come now, have I ever led you wrong before?” he asked.
“No, you haven’t,” she readily admitted. “That’s the only reason why I’m willing to give this stupidity a try. But not right now, I have to get some work done.”
Banishing the “rock”, Arlette returned to her work. She had a little time left before Blake and Gabriela left for one last trip to the north of Kutrad. Arlette didn’t think confronting a god—or “dragon”, as the Earthlings called them—was a very good idea, but Blake seemed to have some sort of plan. That or he’d become so desperate about his physical state that he didn’t know what else to do. Maybe both.
Before they left, Blake wanted to talk to her about plans in case Sofie appeared when they were gone. Chitra had disappeared days ago, presumably on some mission to find Sofie—though of course, Arlette had no desire to confirm such a guess—and nobody had heard from her since. Gabriela maintained faith, asserting that Chitra was a smart and capable individual who they could rely upon. Even putting aside her anti-Ubran biases, Arlette’s outlook lacked the Monster’s rosiness.
Well... there was little use in wasting more time pondering possibilities. Either Sofie would reappear—with Chitra or without her—or she wouldn’t, and Arlette couldn’t do anything about it without risking her life. Until then, as she waited for Blake, she had something else to occupy her attention.
Progress on her ink investigation came in fits and starts. Some evidence trails would go cold, while others would have an unexpected breakthrough. Being the head of Blake’s security apparatus had its benefits, as she had people upon which she could foist many of the dirty work, but she still found herself doing a great deal of the investigation herself. She just didn’t trust her subordinates enough, if she had to be honest, not only to get the job done right, but also to not be double agents. After seasons of wrestling with this slippery guerrilla movement, her paranoia had grown to rival her employer’s.
Ink did not just appear out of nowhere. It had to be manufactured at great cost, then sold at even greater prices. The amount of ink needed to properly blind several of Blake’s monstrous machines would cost a fortune, especially the specific ink the resistance had used: mapper’s ink. Thick, opaque, and resistant to water, mapper’s ink was mostly used to create maps and other documents that might need to withstand a little exposure to moisture without running. Other regions of the world had their own form of mapper’s ink, made through a variety of means, but Otharia’s variant came from the seeds of a rare flower that only grew on the eastern third of the country. The resulting prohibitive cost rendered the ink a niche product here.
One would think that the sudden purchase—or theft—of a large quantity of such a pricey material would not go unnoticed, and yet...
Arlette read the latest report from one of her field agents. It seemed that the small ink seed harvesting community in southeast Otharia knew nothing about any strange ink orders, or they were keeping silent about it. Either way, they claimed that there had been no sudden increase in demand for the seeds. If that proved true, and the other regions reported the same, then it meant all the ink had come from the existing market supply. That should just make the procurement even more glaring.
So why hadn’t she found anything yet?
If only the record-keeping in Otharia could be as good as it was in Eterium. For as annoying as dealing with that government had been, at least they excelled at recording everything. She recalled somebody once telling her that Lord Ferros had pushed for better accounting at some point, and wondered if perhaps the country was actually doing a poor job just to thumb their nose at him.
A buzz from the door pulled Arlette from her musings. She checked the screen installed in her desk. Instead of finding a face in the image, she found herself looking at an overhead view of some slightly messy brown hair falling down a child’s shoulders. Arlette didn’t need to think too hard to know why Samanta stood outside her door.
“Hey Samanta,” she greeted the child after opening the door. “He asked you to come get me?”
The tyke nodded, and the two of them made their way out of the Security Ministry offices and into the deeper bowels of the fortress.
“I bet you wish he would make some sort of communication system for this place, don’t you?” Arlette asked after a bit. “Then there would be no need to send you running around to fetch people for him.”
“Understanding doesn’t work through speakers,” Samanta reminded her. “It wouldn’t work unless we all had the same speak. Especially with how he is right now where he can’t speak properly. He says he’s going to make some new system with lights or something the next time he redesigns the floors, but he said that the last time, too.”
“Is that so?” Arlette chuckled, hiding a smile behind her hand. The Samanta that she’d first met would never have spoken that much to her, especially not about stuff related to Blake. Ever since their talk beside Blake’s unconscious body, the child had started opening up to Arlette more. Perhaps she saw Arlette as a kindred spirit of sorts. Arlette wasn’t to seek out children like Sofie or Gabriela seemed to, but she did feel a little encouraged by how Samanta seemed... well, not happier, exactly, but at least noticeably less miserable than before. It almost felt to Arlette like she’d reached back into the past and helped free her childhood self of the self-loathing that had tortured her for her entire adolescence. Nobody should have to go through that unnecessary pain.
Eventually, Samanta split off to go do whatever it was she needed to do, while Arlette continued onward to her boss’s quarters. There, she found the man sitting in his wheeled chair, surrounded by three long-legged, waist-high skitters that almost reminded Arlette of end tables from their general shape and proportions.
Arlette couldn’t see much of Blake Myers himself. He sat in his usual armored suit, though with his head uncovered and propped up by his chair’s elevated headrest. Ever since the Sofie incident, he didn’t seem to care if she saw his face. He must have figured that any weight or presence created by his armored image would be undone by her memory of him naked and bleeding out his ass. If so, he figured correctly.
Speaking of which, judging from his face alone, Blake had yet to recover from his latest setback. She’d been told before of previous “episodes”, as he called them, but had never experienced one herself until yesterday. It had been a harrowing experience, and she still couldn’t believe the ceiling had not collapsed and crushed her to death. He believed that these incidents were caused by stress, though that only led Arlette to wonder why he didn’t have them every five minutes.
The Lord Ferros sitting in front of her was easily the worst-looking conscious version of him that she’d ever seen, worse than when he’d been recovering from the Monster’s attack, and worse even than when he’d first woken up post-Sofie. The dark veins easily visible beneath the pallid skin of his face was perhaps what put this version over the top.
“Let’s make this quick,” Blake groaned. “Since we still don’t know the limits of her powers or much about how they work, I’ve made several options. If she shows up while I’m not here, it will be up to you to determine which method will best lock her down. With me so far?”
Arlette nodded.
“Good. Option one,” he wheezed as the first skitter scurried up to Arlette. On the flat top sat a strange-looking metal helmet that seemed almost entirely solid, without even an opening for the eyes. Several crystalline structures were embedded into the outside of the helmet, along with a bit that seemed reminiscent of a speaker.
“This helmet blocks all sound coming in or out, and reproduces it with speakers,” Blake explained. “Given that Sofie’s powers might be in some part sound-based, this could neutralize her powers entirely.”
“But understanding comes through sound, so how would she be able to understand anybody? And how would we understand her?”
“Well, she would just have to learn everybody’s languages,” Blake conceded. “She’s unnaturally good with languages, right?”
“Even for her, that would take forever.”
“Well, we live in a world of compromises,” the man shrugged.
“And what, is she supposed to sleep and wash with it on?”
“No, it can be removed if given permission from an approved administrator.”
“And what if she tries to remove it on her own?”
“Then the embedded crystals make the inner lining implode and her head turns into goop.”
Arlette blinked. “...uh...”
“Option two,” Blake resumed, gesturing with his metal arm at the second skitter, which moved forward to take the place of the retreating first. On this one, Arlette found a metal collar, as thick as those used against the mightiest Feelers. She picked it up and was surprised by the lighter-than-expected weight. “This baby will listen for Sofie to say her magic word. When she does...”
The inner half of the collar suddenly and powerfully constricted, the movement so swift and unexpected that Arlette accidentally dropped it back onto the skitter top below.
“...bam! No air for five minutes. The point is to stop her from saying anything after the trigger word. Hollywood lies, you know; it takes more than six minutes to die from strangulation. At least, it does on Earth. With the way our bodies are tougher here, I bet it would take far longer for her to die. This should just be enough to neutralize her for a while.”
Arlette thought back to her deadly struggle with the Ubran Emperor, remembering how she had strangled him with a chain and the excruciating wait for him to fall unconscious. She figured that Blake was probably right about how much danger it would put Sofie in, though she couldn’t help but think that he was brushing off the pain that would come with it.
“And should she somehow keep talking even while being choked out?”
“It explodes,” he replied nonchalantly.
“...I-”
“Option three is if nothing else works,” Blake cut in as the third skitter replaced the second. Atop the skitter was a small model of a home placed upon a hill, the whole thing grey and made of tucrenyx. “I’ve built a small house out in the nearby countryside where we can keep her away from anybody. I got this idea from what the Drayhadans are doing with that Mother of Nightmares person. Basically, we set up two perimeters, an outside one and an inside one. Nobody else goes inside the outer perimeter, and she can’t go outside the inner perimeter. If we make the gap between the two large enough that she can’t be heard by anybody outside, then she can’t mess with anybody. Complete isolation, everybody is safe.”
“And she dies if she leaves,” Arlette stated as much as asked.
“Well, yeah,” came the answer, as if she’d asked if the night sky held three moons.
“What if the Resistance gets in and steals her away?”
“Then she definitely dies.”
Arlette sighed. Was this the man she’d worked for over the last few seasons, or was he losing the plot before her eyes?
“What? What’s with that look?” Blake demanded to know.
“I’m just as concerned with Sofie using her powers against us as you, but isn’t this a bit... extreme?”
“Why shouldn’t I take every precaution to ensure my safety around a dangerous individual?”
“But how is she different from you? Aren’t you also a dangerous individual? What about the Monster?”
“It’s not the same,” Blake argued. “Just being within earshot of Sofie is like having a loaded gun pressed up against your head at all times. With me, or even Gabby, you can see it coming. You can react. But what can you do if Sofie leans around that doorway behind you and says ‘don’t live’ really fast? Because that’s all it is going to take for her to wipe us all out. Two simple, quick words and it’s already too late. I refuse to live with that gun against my head, and the only surefire way to remove it is to guarantee that she’ll die too if she tries something.”
“Then why not just kill her on sight, if you’re going to treat her like some dangerous beast?” Arlette replied, a little sour on the inside. Even after all that Sofie had done, this felt a bit wrong.
“Logically, that would be the safest course,” Blake admitted, “but I can’t go that far when she hasn’t actually done anything against us knowingly. Not yet. Besides, we might need her abilities for something in the future.”
“So you just want to lock her away, make her your unwilling prisoner for the rest of her life?”
“Why are you giving me such a hard time about this?” he complained. “I thought you, more than anybody, understood the threat that she represents.”
“Because you’re talking about her like she’s a tool, that’s why!” Arlette shot back. “Just some object to keep around for your own convenience! I can’t stand that, even if it’s her we’re talking about! I just can’t! Is it not true that she stopped Gabriela from killing you? Doesn’t that count for anything?”
Blake sighed. “Look. I can’t afford half-measures with this, or none of my solutions will end up being of use. Besides, you know her as well as I do. Are you really willing to bet everything that she isn’t going to show up out of nowhere with some stupid idea in her head and do something regrettable? The first thing she did when we first met was punch me in the face. What is stopping her later on from deciding that I’m a tyrant that needs to be taken down and then doing something about it?”
“I know her well enough to know that she won’t accept any of these choices for too long, that’s what I know. She’ll become resentful of your rules and start working against them eventually. Most anybody would.”
“I’m working with a teaspoon of knowledge and an ocean of assumptions and guesswork here. You should feel happy that I was able to come up with anything at all. Look, if she shows up—if—then you’re going to need something you can use. We need to get her under control in the short term; she cannot be allowed to roam about unchecked, and you need something that can make sure that happens without putting everybody around her in danger. That’s all these are. We can work on something you and she find more acceptable in the future if we have to.”
“Fine, whatever,” Arlette grunted as she walked out of his chambers. “Make sure you take a Many with you this time.”
* * *
The discussion with Blake left a bad taste in her mouth, so Arlette decided to go replace that taste with something better from the fortress dining hall. Blake’s quarters were currently located on the fifth floor of the fortress where Samanta, Arlette, Sofie, and Gabriela also had rooms. Access to this floor was restricted, with the only other person with access being Leo. All others would be unable to take the elevators to the fifth floor or get inside without being let in by one of the aforementioned people.
The food, on the other hand, was all the way down on the ground floor, and between her and said comestibles were three floors filled with the administrative offices of the various government ministries. Hers could be found on the fourth floor, which was nice because it meant her common trips to the fifth floor and back wasted as little time as possible.
Calling the elevator, Arlette waited for the chime and then stepped past the opening doors. Selecting the ground floor, she moved into the corner and waited as the cabin descended. Slowing down as it approached the third floor, the elevator came to a halt and its doors opened to reveal the one person that Arlette least wanted to see.
“Elseling,” Minister of State Simona Jumala hissed as she stepped into the elevator. All of a sudden, the comfortable temperature of the cabin seemed to freeze over.
“Minister,” Arlette flatly replied.
Arlette and Simona had become intimately acquainted the previous year when Arlette had sucker-punched the Otharian, after which Simona had tried to kill her by dropping her out of the sky. Arlette had demanded that Blake do something about the crazy woman or she would not work for him. That “something” had turned out to be an apology from Simona—a poor and insincere one, in Arlette’s opinion—and Blake giving her a “stern talking-to” wherein he made it clear to the lunatic that any further action would not be tolerated. Arlette hadn’t been sold that this would be enough, but she had to admit that she’d barely seen the other woman in the seasons since. Barely, except for times like this.
“What have you done to my lord?!” the Otharian snapped, her voice laced with venom. “What foul plots are you planning?”
Arlette rolled her eyes and fought down the urge to punch her again. “What are you ranting about now?”
“Lord Ferros has not been to a Council meeting for days! He refuses to give an audience to any of the Ministers, save you!” The woman stepped closer, her eyes filled with wild suspicion. “Why is that? What evils are you up to?!”
As Arlette looked into the Otharian’s unhinged gaze, her battle-honed instincts started to flare warnings of an imminent attack. Not having her sword on her at the time, her arms drifted down to her thighs, fingers hovering over the knives strapped to the outside of each leg. Her heartbeat quickened, each beat thumping in her ears.
Another chime rang through the cabin, forcing Arlette out of her fighting state. To her immense relief, the cabin just then came to a stop and the doors opened to reveal the first floor. “Your problems have nothing to do with me. Go bother Lord Ferros and leave me out of your insanity,” she said as she sidled around Simona and out of the elevator.
“I will uncover your plans, Elseling! Mark my words!” Simona shouted after her as she quickly retreated. “I will not let you Elselings corrupt-”
The doors closed again, cutting the raving lunatic off. Arlette let out a breath of relief. She’d almost pulled a knife on a presumably unarmed woman, crazy or not. That would have gone over poorly against most anybody, but Simona especially would have used it to drag her into all sorts of trouble.
Today had already exhausted her, and it was only the early afternoon. Hopefully, the rest of the day would be less stressful.
* * *
After her meal, Arlette walked over to the House of Manys. She’d heard the sound of the Flying Toaster leaving the fortress, meaning Blake and Gabriela had left for Kutrad, and she wanted to make sure she knew which Many to use if she needed to contact them in case of emergency. The Many handlers here took a bit of getting used to, and she didn’t want to have to waste time with them if something was on fire.
Once that had been taken care of, she went back to her office for a little more work. There were threats to look into, and it was about time she gave the border perimeter system another inspection. After that, who knew? Maybe she’d go find Tehlmar and have a drink or seventeen.
A ping came from her work terminal on her desk, its tone loud and insistent. She didn’t hear this sound often; it meant that somebody without entrance authorization was trying to request entrance to the fortress.
Activating the machine, she answered the ping, a series of images of two people shot from various angles filling the screen. She immediately recognized the pair as Sofie and Chitra. The Ubran stood tall and dignified, as unruffled and above the fray as the first time Arlette had met her, her immaculate Batranala outfit spotless, as usual. Meanwhile, Sofie looked about the opposite, her shoulders slumped as she stared at the ground in front of her feet, every bit the sorrowful, repentant child. The Earthling looked even thinner than before, but mostly unharmed, with the noted exception of some bandages wrapped around her fingers.
She’d found Sofie, Arlette realized with sudden alarm. She braced herself for an onslaught of agony, but none came. Right, she realized, she wasn’t barred from finding Sofie, she was barred from attempting to find Sofie. Which she hadn’t done. She’d dodged an arrow without even knowing it.
Arlette immediately initiated Step One of what Blake had dubbed the “Omega Karen Protocol”, activating a set of skitters held in reserve for this very moment. The twenty skitters flooded out from their various compartments and stormed through and around the fortress, coming to surround Sofie from all sides. Deadly machines immune to Sofie’s powers, leveled their weapons of war in her direction and she quailed at the sight.
Sofie said something in a sort of depressed sob, though, as always, the meaning did not follow the sound through the speakers. This, of course, presented a problem, though not one that Arlette couldn’t overcome. Picking up the microphone attached to the side of the machine, she summoned up decades-old childhood lessons and spoke.
“You found her,” she noted in rusty, halting Ubran. It was the best way Arlette could think of to communicate with them. She absolutely refused to get close enough to them to allow everybody to understand each other normally, so she could only rely on what she’d learned back in her fake princess training.
“It was a simple matter, Minister,” the Batranala replied in perfect Gustilian, because of course she fucking could. Well, at least it would make this whole process easier. “What would you have us do now?”
“I have questions,” Arlette told her, switching with relief to Gustilian herself. “You may come inside, but Sofie must stay there for now.”
Arlette noted how the Earthling stiffened slightly at the mention of her name.
“She says that you must stay out here for the moment,” Chitra told her, still using Gustilian, likely so Arlette could follow along.
Sofie nodded, looking around at the gang of robots surrounding her and the crowd of Otharian onlookers forming around them. She said something pleading to Chitra.
“She asks that you allow her in just enough for her to escape the gazes of the people.”
“No,” Arlette immediately replied.
Sofie must have understood from the tone alone, as she seemed to deflate. With a sigh, Arlette switched her terminal back to skitter command mode, selected the outermost ten robots—twenty of the latest skitter variant was more than overkill anyway, in her opinion—and ordered them to turn about and begin a crowd dispersal protocol. The citizens got the message pretty quickly and most of them scattered.
With that taken care of, Arlette opened the nearby entrance for just a moment, allowing the Ubran into the fortress. Leaving her office with three skitters in tow, she took the elevator—Simona-free this time, thank the stars—to the first floor. There, she commandeered two more person-sized skitters to act as bodyguards—just in case Sofie had implanted something terrible in Chitra’s mind—and met the Batranala in person. After the initial greetings, she led the Ubran to the elevator for a private discussion.
“I’m afraid that Gabriela is not here at the moment,” she informed the beautiful woman.
“Ah, she rode within the floating machine we saw not too long ago?”
“Yes,” Arlette replied as the two of them entered the empty elevator. “So... was it difficult? You were gone longer than I had thought you would be.”
“Not very,” the Ubran claimed. “She was quite easy to track down. The delay can be attributed to some... mistakes that happened along the way.”
“I see,” Arlette answered noncommittally.
They said little else until Arlette led Chitra out onto the fifth floor, where she knew they could talk in private.
“Have you have learned about Sofie’s powers?” she inquired. “We can’t allow her inside until we have her ability under control.”
The Ubran nodded with understanding and agreement. “You are wise to seek to control her while she is vulnerable.”
Arlette let out a grunt; it felt as if the words had taken physical form and slapped her across the face. “That’s not what this is about.”
“My apologies, I jumped to conclusions,” the Ubran replied in that diplomatic way that left little doubt in Arlette’s mind just how on the mark Chitra believed herself to actually be. “As for her abilities...”
It turned out that Chitra had learned much. Very much. Far more than Arlette had hoped. Enough, for sure, for Arlette to make a determination.
“Take this to her,” she instructed, handing over the thick collar. “She cannot enter without first wearing this.”
“A slave collar of sorts?” Chitra mused, looking it over with care.
This time, it felt like the words had slammed into her gut. “It is only a precaution, though a dangerous one,” she allowed.
“I shall take this to her, though I doubt she will be delighted to see it.”
“Be careful, then. If she decides to use her powers, this will be her last chance and you will be the only target.”
The Ubran smiled knowingly. “I do not foresee that being an issue,” she calmly replied as she turned to leave.
“Oh, one more thing,” Arlette added to the retreating Ubran.
“Yes?”
“It would be in everybody’s best interests, yours especially, if this entire thing were to be buried and never spoken of again. The public cannot know the truth of what she can do.”
“Worry not, Minister,” the Batranala responded as she stepped into the elevator. “In the palace, secrets were not just a skill, they were a way of life.”
The doors closed, leaving Arlette to collect her thoughts. She took the next cabin down, going back to her office to watch the events unfold from the terminal.
A short wait later, she observed as the fortress gate opened once more and Chitra stepped outside. A seed of guilt germinated inside her as she saw Sofie look up with hope gleaming in her eyes; the guilt grew, taking root in her gut, as she watched that hope wither away the moment Sofie noticed the collar. For some reason, Arlette got the impression that Sofie somehow recognized it for what it was.
Sofie said something, her voice soft.
“She did not tell me,” Chitra replied.
Sofie said something more.
“She wishes to know what the collar will do to her,” Chitra said through the screen. “Specifically, she wishes to know if it will explode and kill her.”
Sofie knew after all. Arlette couldn’t say how, but she knew. Perhaps something similar had been used on her before, back when she’d left Arlette during the siege?
“If she pushes it too far, it will,” she confirmed.
One passed message later, Sofie let out a squawk of dismay-tinged outrage, followed by a spurt of distressed but unintelligible words.
“She asks if there is any way she could be allowed inside without having to wear a bomb around her neck,” Chitra clarified.
“No,” Arlette stated.
Another relayed message, another torrent of words. Arlette did not need to understand them to recognize hurt feelings beneath. She felt a twinge of guilt but told herself that it had to be done.
“She says that the collar is terrible and demeaning, and she begs you to reconsider. She says she just wants to make up for her mistakes and asks that you give her a chance.”
“She’s welcome to make up for any mistakes she wants, as long as she puts on the collar,” Arlette replied. “Those are the requirements. Lord Ferros will not compromise on this.”
Chitra repeated Arlette’s statement and Sofie seemed to deflate. She mumbled something low and sad.
“She wants to know how the collar works, in detail, before she puts it on.”
Arlette thought back to the instructions Blake had given her just before he left. “First, she must put on the collar. Then, when it starts to beep, she must say ‘don’t’ several times in her speak as she would say it when using her powers. Once the collar is set up, it will listen for her to speak that word, and when she does, it will constrict around her throat until she cannot breathe. If she somehow keeps speaking through this, it will explode and kill her.”
The relayed explanation took a bit longer this time, but soon enough she heard Sofie’s panicked, irate, ranting reply, which seemed to stretch on and on. Finally, with a huff, Sofie seemed to run out of both air and anger.
“I will save you the litany of disparaging remarks about a person named Blake,” Chitra finally told her. “She wants to know how it will know not to choke her if she says something like ‘I don’t feel hungry’, or how it won’t kill her if she talks in her sleep.”
“People like Lord Ferros and myself can temporarily deactivate it using touch and a keyword, so we will disable it when you want to sleep. As for other usages of the word, I don’t think it can tell the difference.”
A stammered objection.
“Yes, you do say it all the time,” Chitra agreed.
More anguished gnashing of teeth.
“What about if you used a gag as well?”
A pause, then a question.
“Yes, exactly.”
A long, protracted sigh escaped Sofie’s lips as she seemed to wither even more.
Chitra turned back to the communication panel. “She requires a gag,” she informed Arlette.
“A gag?” a befuddled Arlette repeated.
“Yes, a implement inserted into the mouth to hamper mouth movement and speech and is often used for binding or activities of a sexual-”
“Yesyesyes I know what that is!” Arlette interjected. “But why?”
“Since she cannot use her powers without speaking in her native tongue, a gag would allow her to communicate without worrying about unintended harm.”
Sofie, her voice seemingly filled with a desperate hope, asked something.
“She offers to wear a gag instead of the collar, as it would prevent her from using her powers without the need for choking or death.”
Arlette thought about it. Given that she wasn’t a fan of Blake’s remedies, the proposal appealed to her somewhat. But, there would be nothing stopping Sofie from just taking the gag out and using her powers, and Blake would never go for that. He would not accept any solution that didn’t completely prevent Sofie from slipping her restraint off and striking when he least expected it.
“Rejected,” she finally said. “We can get her a gag so she feels safe to speak, but the collar must be worn too. Enough delaying. Put it around your neck and let’s get this over with.”
She could see Sofie hesitating as she held the collar in her hands. The younger woman still didn’t want to put it on, and Arlette didn’t blame her. She decided to give Sofie one more push.
“Sofie, listen. I know you don’t like this, but you made your choice when you came back here. Blake is deadly serious about this. If you refuse to wear that collar, I’ve been ordered to take you away to your own little prison out in the wilderness. Everything there is run by his machines, and you won’t be allowed within leagues of another living, breathing person, possibly ever.
“I know how much you need people in your life. If you ever want to talk to Samanta, or say hi to Leo, or share a meal with Gabriela, you have to give in here. If you ever want to be able to snuggle with Pari again, you have to put on the collar. Please just do it, for everyone’s sake.”
Arlette could hear Sofie sniff long and loud, her hands trembling in the terminal image. Slowly, she brought the collar up to her throat and put it on.
Arlette watched as they went through the setup procedure, making sure that everything went as Blake had instructed. She didn’t have to understand Sofie to know that she spoke the proper word. The memories of Sofie’s powers were seared in her mind to the point that she would never forget what that word sounded like.
“Thank you,” she said through the microphone when it was finally over.
“I believe my task is now complete, so I shall take my leave,” Chitra told them both with a bow. “Please tell Gabriela that I wish to see her when she returns.” With that said, she turned and made her way through the crowd of skitters and off into the city.
Arlette opened the gate again, letting Sofie inside the fortress for the first time in many days. Once she saw the Earthling had entered, she closed it again and ordered the surrounding skitters to return to their bays.
Turning off the terminal, Arlette leaned back and rubbed her temples. She hated having to be the bad guy, and she couldn’t help but resent both Blake and circumstance for foisting this role upon her. Still, the role needed to be played, no matter how guilty it made her feel.
A buzz came from the door. Arlette didn’t need to check the screen this time to know who would be on the other side. Taking a deep breath, she hit a button and the door opened to reveal a disheveled Sofie standing in the doorway.
The Earthling nervously clutched her left arm above the elbow with her right hand. Dirty, matted hair hung over her Arlette couldn’t see too much of her face through the dirty, matted hair that hung over it, but she noticed the gleam of wetness through the gaps. The one eye she could see swept its gaze around the room but avoided Arlette entirely.
Two chairs sat on the far side of Arlette’s desk. Slowly and silently, the Earthling shuffled over to one and slumped down into it with tired movements. She rocked back and forth slightly, her hands repeatedly going up to touch the collar, as if still in disbelief that it was there.
For several long, excruciating moments, silence reigned, neither of them willing to be the first to speak. Finally, Arlette couldn’t take it anymore and cleared her throat.
“So Chitra says that you can-”
Sofie raised her head and met Arlette’s gaze, giving Arlette a clear look at her tear-streaked face. “Do you really think so poorly of me? Do you really think I’d do something to you again after all of this?”
“Hey, the exploding collar is Blake’s idea, not mine,” Arlette deflected. “If a gag can restrict your abilities, I would be fine with that, but you know he won’t go for it.”
“But you still made me wear it, and you wouldn’t even come out and talk to me. You just hid up here like I was some sort of demon or something! You know who I am as much as anybody, Arlette. Am I really that scary to you?!”
Arlette took a deep breath and looked Sofie in the eyes. “...yes. I find you absolutely terrifying. All of you Earthlings scare me,” she continued as Sofie slumped in her chair. “Blake can make hundreds of machines capable of horrific death, an army of beings that can’t be sliced, fooled by illusions, or reasoned with. If he decided to ambush me, my death would be assured.
“My nerves still go on edge whenever the Monster is around me. I can’t help it. I’ll never be able to forget the carnage she wrought before my eyes, no matter how sad she acts about it now.
“But you... you terrify me far more than the others. They are just hypothetical threats; I know what you can do. What happened to me when I tried to fight your rule was one of the worst experiences of my life, and it was just a slap on the wrist compared to what you did to Blake and what I bet you could do if you really wanted to cause harm. Just think about it makes me tremble.
“Let’s be realistic, here. If you weren’t wearing that collar, you could kill me in the blink of an eye right at this very moment and there would be literally nothing I could do to stop you. I would be dead before I even knew what was happening. I can’t not be terrified, Sofie. It just isn’t possible.”
“But I would never do that to you ever again, now that I know! I would never hurt you! You’re my only real friend! You know that... right?”
“Sofie...” Arlette let out a slow breath. This whole conversation hurt. She didn’t want to say what she had to say, but she didn’t want to lie more. Everybody needed to lay it all out on the table. “I know you believe that, and with all of your heart. But a bomb that hasn’t exploded is still a bomb. And life doesn’t care what that bomb swears it will or won’t do. Life loves nothing more than to reveal vows like that as folly.”
Sofie’s hands went to her collar again. “Do you have to talk about bombs right now?” she grumbled.
“Sorry, but if we’re to be honest, here, that’s the best analogy I can think of for you right now. You’re an immediate, imminent threat to anybody within speaking distance.”
“...I never wanted to be a bomb,” Sofie muttered, as her eyes started leaking once more.
“I know. I know. But I learned long ago that none of us gets to pick our lot in life. I... I fear you, Sofie, but I don’t hate you, understand?”
“Really?” the Earthling sniffed, rubbing the tears away with her sleeve. “After everything I did to you?”
“I... I can’t stand being manipulated, but I recognize that you at least didn’t know what you were doing to me, and I don’t want to hate somebody for accidents. I’m still pretty angry at you, though.”
“I’m sorry, Arlette. For... for messing with your mind, and for being such a burden, and for putting you in danger because of my selfishness. You deserve better friends than people like me.”
“Stop it,” Arlette replied with a scowl. “I get to decide who deserves to be my friend, not you. And I’m sorry, too, for trying to hurt you before. I lost myself and overreacted.”
Sofie practically leapt to her feet. “Hugs.”
Arlette blinked as Sofie marched around the desk. “Huh?”
Sofie stuck her hands out and pulled Arlette out of her seat and into a tight embrace. “Hugs.”
After a moment of mental recalibration, Arlette begrudgingly let her arms wrap around the Earthling’s back. She could feel Sofie’s bones through her skin, a stark reminder of just how much the younger woman’s body had withered away this last season. She’d say something about it later when the mood was more right.
“You know,” Sofie began, “people would probably say that I’ve had nothing but bad luck these last few years, with the whole ‘sucked into another world’ thing, but that’s wrong because I got you. I didn’t pick you, you know. I just grabbed the first person I could. And I was thinking, I’d be dead by now if it had been anybody else in that entire city. That, or enslaved. It was a one in a million chance. I’m glad it was you, Arlette. I might not ever be able to repay you for everything you’ve done for me, but I want you to know that I’ll always be grateful.”
“You can start repaying me by releasing me from your curse,” Arlette replied. “I was trying to say that before, but we got sidetracked.”
“Oh! Ahaha, right!” Sofie laughed. “Sorry, I got so caught up in my feelings earlier that I forgot for a moment! I should have done that first!” She squirmed out of Arlette’s embrace and reached out to firmly grasp both of Arlette’s shoulders. Looking her squarely in the eyes, she solemn said, “I forgive you.”
Arlette must have misheard. “You forgive me?”
“Oooohhhh!” Sofie gasped. “My, that was waaaay stronger than before! You must have had a lot!”
“You forgive me?” Arlette repeated.
“Oh, that’s just what I have to say to release somebody,” Sofie explained. “It’s stupid, but whatever. At least it works! You should be good to go!”
Arlette searched herself. She didn’t feel any different, as far as she could tell.
“I have so much to do,” Sofie sighed as she sluggishly returned to her seat. “There are so many people I have to apologize to and clean of geasa... Blake, Gabby, Pari, Leo probably, Sam too, Jerithim-”
Oh, did Sofie not know Jerithim had died? In all the chaos of that time, nobody must have informed her. Arlette added it to her list of things to talk about when the mood was better.
“Keep it to Blake, Gabriela, Samanta, Leo, and myself for the moment,” Arlette told her. “We don’t want anybody else to know about what you did to Blake. We can’t have him look weak to the public.”
“But then, how can I fix the others?” Sofie objected.
Arlette shrugged. “I’m not saying don’t fix them, just find a way to say what you have to say mid-conversation. Or just say it to them outright and don’t explain it. They can’t know what you did to them. The only people in on this are us, Blake, Gabriela, Leo, and Samanta.”
“And Chitra?”
“And her, sort of. She shouldn’t know about Blake though, unless you said something?”
“Not specifically...” Sofie answered, looking away. “I... she saved me from some... some bad stuff. But I still can’t fully trust her for some reason, and I’m not sure why. I feel a bit guilty about it.”
Arlette shook her head. “Don’t. I don’t trust her too much either.”
“Really? Then why did you send her after me?”
“You made sure we all couldn’t find you. We didn’t have anybody else. She clearly did the task well enough, at least.”
“I guess...” Sofie agreed, though Arlette caught a twinge of sadness in her eyes.
A second lull settled over them for a moment. Arlette once again focused inward, trying to feel for any changes to her self, but couldn’t find anything. She probably lacked the means. Peko would be able to help, but it wasn’t like she could summon him while Sofie was around.
“How do I know I’m clean?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” Sofie frowned.
“I just don’t feel any different, is all. Isn’t there some way to verify that it worked?”
“Oh! Well, we just have to have you do something you couldn’t do!” Sofie chirped before her gaze grew distant as she looked into the past. “Let’s see... well, I’d rather you not leave me to die, so that’s out. What else was there? Oh, I know! Slap me!”
“What?” Arlette snorted.
“I put a geas on you that prevented you from hurting me at the same time I stopped you from trying to look for me, remember? Well, now we can kill two birds with one stone!” Sofie chirped with a wide, pleased grin. She hopped back out of her seat and pulled Arlette up as well. “If you’re still feeling angry at me, give me a good old whack on the arm and work out that aggression while proving that you’re all better!”
Arlette stared at the younger woman in front of her, her arms held out invitingly, and didn’t know what to think. Hurt Sofie? Why? This seemed like such a stupid and pointless idea. They’d just reconciled, why would she want to hurt her friend?
“Come on, get to smacking!” prodded the friend in question.
“I’d rather not,” Arlette replied. “Have you looked at yourself recently? Look how thin and bony your arms are! I don’t want to break something.”
“What, are you serious?” Sofie scoffed. “I’m not made of glass, you know! You’re not going to kill me with a stupid little hit on the arm.”
“Yeah but...”
“Oh, stop treating me like a baby.” Sofie rolled her eyes and grabbed Arlette’s right hand, putting Arlette’s finger and thumb on Sofie’s exposed wrist. “Just pinch me then, if you’re going to make such a big deal out of my silly idea.”
Arlette stared blankly down at her hand, her fingers primed for a simple pinch. But she didn’t want to pinch Sofie.
Why didn’t she want to? A worrying possibility arose in her mind. This felt just like how she’d rationalized other things in her mind related to Sofie and her restrictions. But wasn’t she supposed to be free from those? What was going on?
Now that she recognized the familiar strings pulling at her thoughts, they no longer had a hold on her. With that realization came the realization that she actually did want to smack Sofie, very much. She took her hand off Sofie’s wrist and pulled her arm back, winding it up for a good hearty slap.
Her arm wouldn’t move. It felt just like before, a wall inside her mind, blocking out possibilities and actions. She pushed against it, fighting to break through the wall for just a moment, and through force of will, broke through. Her arm lethargically swept forward and bumped weakly into Sofie’s hand with a barely audible ‘smack’.
“What was that?” Sofie asked, puzzled.
Arlette pulled her hand back and tried again. The same wall reared up inside her and she broke through it with just as much effort as before. Her arm moved a bit faster and the smack this time sounded a bit louder than the last time. Sofie let out a tiny “ah!” and flinched slightly. Arlette tried again and again, but found herself unable to bring forth anything stronger than that tepid second slap.
“Arlette, what are you doing? What’s wrong?”
“I thought you said you could fix me! You didn’t take the blocks inside my head out at all!”
“W-what?!”
Emotional wounds deep inside Arlette—formed during her childhood and deepened with each new breach of trust—reopened once again and let loose a swell of anger and betrayal, unbidden and unwanted but impossible to contain.
“They’re still there! You little fake! Did you have that fucking Ubran bitch say that so you could get in here?!”
“I-I don’t-” Sofie stammered behind her.
A loud, sudden alarm blared from Sofie’s collar and her voice cut out, strangled from existence by thick, strong, and uncompromising bands of metal. Sofie’s eyes seemed ready to pop out of her head as she staggered back, her hands clutching desperately at Blake’s creation to little effect. Her foot hit the corner of her chair and she tumbled to the floor, writhing in pain.
Part of Arlette felt satisfaction watching the Earthling suffer, but not enough to keep her from acting. Moving to the younger woman’s side, she roughly grasped the collar and put her hand on the finger sensors and spoke the nonsense words that Blake had taught her for deactivating the device.
With two short beeps, the collar disengaged and Sofie took a massive, loud gasping breath. She coughed and shuddered on the floor for a few moments as more tears started to leak from her wide, red eyes.
“I can’t do this,” she sobbed. “I can’t! I can’t live with this thing around my neck! Please, I need the gag, at least! Please!”
“You’ll get your fucking gag. Now, get out,” Arlette growled, pointing toward the door.
Sofie coughed again and swallowed as she climbed unsteadily back to her feet. “Arlette, I’m so sorry! I didn’t know! Chitra never had this-”
“I said GET OUT!” she screamed, her whole body shaking with a fury that threatened to burst out at any moment. Sofie trembled before that fury and scampered away, hurrying from the room. Arlette listened to the sound of Sofie’s retreating footsteps. Only when they seemed far enough away did she let loose. Picking up Sofie’s chair, she hurled it across the room as hard as she could, watching it carom off the walls with a great crash before skidding into her desk and coming to a halt.
Broken. No matter how much time passed, no matter who or what tried to fix her, she remained broken. She’d thought she’d changed after Tehlmar had come back. She’d thought that maybe she’d be able to handle herself the next time her trust turned out to be misplaced. But every single time, it still hurt more than the last. Would these scars inside her ever truly heal?
Before she even knew where she was going, Arlette found herself up on the fifth floor, walking to her room. Her route took her by Sofie’s room, its door closed tight. She thought she heard what sounded like weeping coming from the other side and, for a moment, she considered stopping to try to say something but decided against it. Instead, she continued to her own room, wherein she threw herself onto her bed, face-down into a pillow, and tried not to scream.
She felt a presence join her on the bed, a soft hand gently rubbing her shoulder.
“Can you still see what she did to me?” she asked.
“No, the bindings are gone. She really did remove them, like she said,” Peko replied. “But your soul is still twisted and warped from what she did. That’s probably what is still affecting you.”
“Do you think it will get better?”
“I don’t know. Only time will tell, I guess,” he told her.
“I’m so tired, Peko. Every time I trust somebody, they end up hurting me.”
He gave her shoulder a steady squeeze. “Then you have to get stronger until they can’t hurt you anymore. Just listen to me. I’ll be with you all the way to the end, just like I always have been.”
“You’re the only one, the only one who has never harmed me,” Arlette sniffed. “Thank you, Peko. Thank you for being here.”
“Of course,” he said with a smile. “It’s why you created me, isn’t it? We’re a team! Just you and me, against the world.”
Comments
Lictor Magnus
Thanks for the chapter! I hope Arlette and Sofie, make up properly at some point.
IrateRapScallion
Mine have been small-ish, but still incredibly painful
Chad B. Sonnen
OwO amazing chapter dude. Kidney stones looks so horrific, My high school teacher had his Kidney stone in resin as a paper weight abd it still haunts me to this day. Now J drink water bus the gallons.
Newguy Roy
Oh wow, so long enough with the geass and you need rehab Oo
