Undivided worlds, p.27
Undivided Worlds, page 27
It’s Suri who cuts through the hemming and hawing, and brings it up. “All right, we’re all thinking it,” she chimes firmly. “And if no one else will say it, I’ll be the bogeyman. Jacob, I’m sorry, but you’re going to need to return with Sudo; it’d be too suspicious if you didn’t.”
I sigh, but can’t disagree.
Sudo has other hosts but she’s been using Jacob a lot as he’s by far her most prestigious one, and as a Pellucid-tier Peilor, she has to keep up appearances. Having him stay with us, in body or spirit, would indeed be suspicious.
Jacob shrugs, but I can tell from the tension in his face that he doesn’t like it. “If that’s how it is, so be it,” he says gruffly. “It’s a small price to pay in the scheme of things.”
Once again, I detest my inability to properly hug my fleshling friends.
While what he’s saying isn’t wrong, he’s leaving out the part where he’s at risk of getting the tables turned back on him by Sudo, and losing the very freedom he just regained. But I’m not about to dissuade him when he’s being a trooper.
“We’ll put some Commands on you to help prevent you from breaking character,” I say instead, hardening my heart. “Just to be safe. Nothing too confining either, just... kinda like what I did with Alec, earlier, but more glare-y, as that seemed to be your default under Sudo.”
Jacob nods. “That’s fine. Or helpful, rather. It’ll be a lot less stressful if I don’t have to actively concentrate on keeping a poker face.”
After that, we settle on a thorough set of Commands for Sudo, that should cover all the different ways her situation could be discovered—though it’s mainly Suri’s work. She is clearly thriving on this whole secret-police thing. I reckon it’s mainly that she loves the challenge, but perhaps also that she finds some thrill in trying to outsmart them.
By the time I’m done placing all of the Commands we came up with, Sudo’s avatar looks more like a ball of twine than a spider.
No way she’s getting out of those anytime soon.
Finally, the time comes when she and Jacob have to leave, as they’re scheduled for a match after Twinset.
“Don’t worry,” he says, seeing Kaitlynn’s rather anxious expression. “In case you haven’t caught on yet, those matches are all fake; I’ll be in no real danger.”
He says it quite convincingly, but after the way he and Alec smacked each other around during the ‘sparring match’ earlier, I’m sure it’s still quite a risky and painful spectacle to take part in. I guess that’s not too different from Earth’s pro wrestling, then; those guys tend to die young from too many head injuries and whatnot.
“Still, be careful with him, you got that, Sudo?” I tell his forehead sternly. Sudo flashes her Lavi in the affirmative.
However, Jacob shakes his head. “No. Sudo has to act like everything is normal,” he stresses. “Seriously, whatever happens out there, I can handle. Her colleagues cannot grow suspicious.”
“I have to agree,” Suri chimes. “We can’t take any risks regarding this.”
I sigh and share a glance with Kaitlynn. She doesn’t look happy about it, but still nods.
“Fine,” I say curtly. “Sudo, you heard him. Business as usual.”
Once more, she flashes in the affirmative.
“Thank you,” Jacob says softly. “Now, if you really want to help spare me some pain, then hurry up and come up with a good plan to get Dave. We’re going to need him if we’re to save Earth, and I’ve got a big family, most of which wouldn’t last a second out here.”
“You got it, Jacob,” Kaitlynn replies easily, though her smile looks strained.
“I mean it, I have way too many cousins,” he insists. “Actually, I guess it wouldn’t be the worst thing ever if the herd got thinned a little, so to speak...”
Alec starts to cackle like a maniac again.
“We’ll take that under consideration,” I respond dryly.
Jacob nods seriously, though with a twinkle in his eyes and a quirk to his lips that betrays his mirth. “Next time we meet, I’ll get you a list of which of my cousins I could stand to lose, just in case.”
And on that note, we move out to see him off at the gate. It’s not easy, watching him fly off under Sudo’s Gravity manipulation, but hopefully it’ll all be worth it. It better be.
“He’s going to be fine, right?” Kaitlynn asks softly, from her perch on Loudmouth’s forehead.
“He is,” I reply from Alec’s greasy brow. “Now let’s head back. We need to report to the Realm of Imagination.”
Kaitlynn stays behind with Loudmouth to fend off solicitors, while Suri and I take Alec to the Realm of Imagination. He’s been there before, of course, though only ever under the guise of it being a ‘dreamscape’ conjured up for a Skilldream.
As his Espir Pool is truly pitiful—barely in the double digits, from what I can tell—Suri hooks him up to her Blank Space, providing him with Neutral Espir to bolster his spiritform, so his Core doesn’t crack when someone so much as sneezes.
Once again I shudder at the thought of how fragile I didn’t know I was when I first entered the Realm of Imagination by myself. If the place had been any less idyllic, I wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes.
We enter via the anchors left behind in Herman’s Haven, and Alec lets out a low whistle as he looks around. “Sweet digs!”
“Glad ya like it, dude,” Herman says as he comes sauntering over, fruity drink in claw, and wearing a different, somehow even louder Hawaiian shirt. “This little dude that friend of yours, Emma?”
“Yeah, he’s a rescue,” I say sweetly, ruffling his hair. “He’s mostly housebroken, though.”
“Hey!” Alec protests. “I’m fully housebroken, thank you very much!”
Herman lets out a full-bellied laugh, his blue mandibles clacking. “You material people crack me up. Peeing... so weird, man! Anyway, I was about to go catch some waves, you dudes want to join me?”
Alec shoots me a hopeful look.
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “Suri, can your umbilical cord stretch that long?”
“What? Oh, yes. That shouldn’t be an issue,” Suri replies distractedly, her eyes on the deep-purple crystalline form of Farouq—once again in a twisted humanoid shape—who appears to be cooperating with one of Trisha’s drones to... build a sandcastle?
More of a palace, almost...
“All right, then,” I say, turning back to Alec. “Go have fun. Oh, and if you come across Kirri, let her know I’m here, and will come to see her in a bit.”
“Who?” Alec asks.
“Oh, she’s Emma’s daughter, dude,” Herman says. “And a sweet ride!”
Alec gapes back and forth between us.
“Oh my, you ride her?” Suri asks innocently. “How frequently, if I might ask?”
“Oh, not too often; she’s generally filled to capacity.”
Alec lets out a strangled noise.
“She’s a sentient ship,” I explain tersely, rubbing my temple against the oncoming headache. “And I sort of... adopted her. Anyway, you can’t miss her out there. Now go on boy, git!”
As Alec rushes off to grab surfboards with his new bro, I follow Suri over to where a masterpiece is being forged out of pristine white sand.
“No abstractions, Farouq?” Suri asks as she draws up behind him.
“It was her turn to pick something,” he replies calmly, as the sand in front of him continues to slowly flow up.
“Oh my, hi dears!” Trisha exclaims, turning away from the balcony railing she was sculpting, her eyes wobbling on their stalks in front of her aquamarine face. “I was so absorbed, I didn’t even notice you!”
“Could you let Goddess know we’re here, please?” I ask her. “We’ve got some pretty big news.”
CHAPTER 37
When opportunity comes knocking
“The Peilor we captured turned out to be a secret agent of Mara’s Starshade Syndicate,” I elaborate when Trisha looks at me curiously.
The fact that I say that in front of Farouq is naturally no accident.
I carefully study his reaction. It’s hard to tell from his facetted face, but he definitely seems to startle for a moment, and the sand finally stops flowing up towards the palace he’s building with Trisha.
“Oh my!” Trisha says. “Well, I’ll let Goddess know first chance I get.”
And with that, she returns to sculpting her balcony.
It feels very incongruous with her statement, but that’s hive minds for ya. Her drone in the floating palace Goddess calls home is probably already looking for an opportunity to surreptitiously flag the almighty ruler down.
“So,” Farouq says nonchalantly, as the sand resumes its inexorable flow into the tower he’s adding to their palace of sand. “I take it you rescued another one of your friends then, right? Does that mean their owner was the secret agent? Who was it, if you don’t mind telling me?”
I knew that would get his attention.
“It was Sudo,” Suri replies calmly.
“I see. Hiding in plain sight, I suppose, with all that exaggerated paranoia,” he muses. “Kind of silly how well that worked; I really didn’t see it coming. Well, it’s impressive that you managed to get Jacob, but I still don’t see how you’re going to get to Dave. Got a plan yet?”
“Not yet,” I admit. “But hey, we only just finished executing our last one. We’ll come up with something.”
“I’m sure you will, dear,” Trisha says encouragingly.
Farouq grunts noncommittally, as if he’s not sure he believes her.
I fold my arms over my chest, narrowing my eyes at what I believe is the back of his head. “You seem quite invested in what we’re up to, by the way. How come?”
He snorts. “You’re surprised I’m invested in the actions of my abductors? Yes, I wonder why.”
“Okay, fair point,” I concede, scratching my neck.
“No, he’s deflecting,” Suri states with certainty. “Go on, Farouq. Tell us why you’re so interested in what we’re doing.”
“You mean apart from this being the most intriguing situation that I’ve ever found myself in?”
“Yes, apart from the obvious, please,” Suri replies as if that’s a normal, expected statement.
He’s silent for a moment. “Fine. If you must know... I’m not entirely unsympathetic to the plight of the humans. Or the Hoig, for that matter.”
I blink. That is... not what I expected.
After all, Farouq has been chained down by Goddess herself, and she definitely added a Command against lying. Which means he has to be telling the truth...
“Oh? Do elaborate, please,” Suri chimes.
“I suppose it started during my excavations on the Hoig home planet,” Farouq muses, still with his back to us, sand drifting ever up in a steady stream. “Many of the things I found begged questions, and the only ones with answers were the Hoig still living there. The ‘reserve’ of hosts, if you will. At first, I was rather indifferent to them, viewing them as inferior, funny little creatures like most Peilor do. But the more I spoke to them, the more I asked questions about their history, their art, the more that changed. I started to feel we weren’t giving them enough credit, began to question whether the way we use them as hosts was truly... just. When the humans were discovered, I was shocked by their intelligence, and it seemed to me that using them as hosts was perhaps an even more blatant injustice.”
“If you’re so sympathetic to us, then what’s with the creepy friggin’ art?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at him.
Farouq lets out a sigh. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but open criticism of the Council’s policy is not exactly appreciated in our society. So I use the only tool I have. It’s kept me safe from reprisal, so far.”
“And the disformed humans?” I prompt. “What exactly did they mean?”
“They were meant as a warning to your people,” Farouq says. “That the intentions of your ‘predecessors’ were not as kind as you were led to believe. Not that I expected it to help you much, which is probably the only reason the producers allowed it. Well, that, and they probably thought I meant it as a cruel joke.”
Damn. I really hadn’t expected that.
“Ugh, I hate this Command,” Farouq mutters. “Please don’t ask me to explain my art again, it makes me very uncomfortable.”
“Sorry,” I say wryly. “I had to know.”
“Yes, well, I understand, but please leave it at this.”
“Farouq,” Suri suddenly starts. “Would you consider yourself opposed to Starmother’s rule?”
“Not openly,” he replies after a moment. “Lost too many friends that way.”
My mouth falls open, before I shut it with a click. Somehow, I still hadn’t seen that one coming.
“How did you lose them?” Suri asks, soft but intent.
“Suspicious accidents,” Farouq replies quietly. “Mysterious disappearances. False accusations of treason. Such things tend to happen to Peilor willing to openly question Peilinor’s policies regarding hosts—or any of its policies for that matter. As I’m sure you understand, I’m not all that saddened by your capture of one of Starmother’s agents.”
I glance at Suri, who’s gone quiet, probably at the ‘false accusations’ bit. Seems like her suspicions about her friend were correct.
“So I stopped speaking out,” Farouq continues unbidden, his tower beginning to grow crooked as he keeps talking. “I turned my rebellion quiet, removed all meaning from my art, to keep it ambiguous. It was all I could do.”
He says it with conviction, but there are spikes growing out of his tower now, nasty, jagged things.
Trisha clears her throat. “Now now, straight and pretty lines, dear, you promised.”
“Right. My apologies,” he says with a sigh, before collapsing the tower, and finally turning around to face us. “I’ll pick it back up later. I have the feeling they’re not quite done interrogating me yet.”
I shrug. “I really have only one important question left, Farouq. Would you like to actively help us take down Starmother?”
He’s quiet for a moment. “If I believed you could do it, I would. But to be honest, it seems like a pipedream. If you ask me, you should collect your last friend and run. Or perhaps just run now.”
“And if we weren’t willing to run,” Suri asks. “Then what would you advise us?”
He snorts. “Hide? Look, I’ve seen too many failed rebellions, and most of them never even got to start. You may have caught a few Peilor off-guard, but Mara cannot be overthrown. Her power is incomprehensible, inexplicable, and her stranglehold on Peilinor is stronger than ever. You’re like ants fighting a mountain.”
“Perhaps,” I drawl. “But you’re forgetting that we have something that none of those previous movements had.”
“Oh yeah, and what’s that?”
“We’ve got our own mountain, goes by the name of Goddess.”
That shuts him up for a moment. “Fine. I may be willing to help you. Do you have a plan yet?”
I shake my head. “We have some have inklings... but we really need to get Dave first. He’s our best strategist.”
Farouq is silent for a moment, then he lets out a sigh. “Well, I don’t suppose I have much to lose, do I? All right, then... I may have an idea of how you could get to Dave.”
I try not to shift too much on the couch in our room at Trisha’s Teahouse, worried that my nerves are showing as we face the full Cinnamon Circle.
It took Goddess a few hours to convene them all, which is a good thing, because we had a lot to discuss with Farouq, and it still left me with time for a chat with Kirri before Suri and I had to leave her and Alec to head to the meeting.
Our new method of moving from Herman’s Haven to Trisha’s Teahouse is an interesting one. It starts with us pulling ourselves out of the Realm and into the Interstice by our mortal tethers. From there, we use our connection to our anchors to re-enter the Realm at a different location. It requires some setup, but it’s certainly an excellent way to get around the Realm fast, and more importantly, discreetly.
“I’m not sure I like it,” Marty glubs, finally breaking the silence.
I raise a brow at him. “What’s not to like? It’s a good plan! I mean we haven’t hammered out all of the details yet, but the basis is solid.”
“A cast reunion, though?” he asks with a hint of doubt.
I shrug. “Why not? Sudo already has an invite, and Farouq says he should be able to swing one through some contacts, as he was nominally on the season with his art being featured, so we have access. Moreover, a reunion like this is the one place where it’s not suspicious for the Blue Dragons to all come together. The Peilor love symbolic, sentimental shit like that. It’s perfect!”
“It’s public,” Marty argues, smacking his lips.
“While that may be true,” Suri states calmly, “considering the difficulty of gaining an audience with a Lustrous-tier Peilor, it is likely the only opportunity for us to act within the frame of time we have; a frame that is now limited not only by the arrival of Earth, mind you, but the check on Sudo’s Core as well.”
“Exactly!” I quickly cut in. “And don’t forget, just getting an audience with Yog wouldn’t necessarily mean getting to see Dave. But this is a cast reunion, which means Yog is guaranteed to bring him; since I killed Avalan, it’s the only host from the show he owns! This really is our best shot.”
Goddess sighs. “We do not doubt that it is your best opportunity, Emma,” she intones slowly. “However, it being your best opportunity, does not yet make it a good opportunity.”
My stomach sinks.
Meanwhile, Agath is taking in Suri with a crease in her slick silvery brows and a shudder passing through her abs. “One thing I don’t understand yet is how you will be attending this event. Unless I’m mistaken, Emma only spoke of invitations for one Yin and one Yang Peilor.”
