Chương 199: Act 3, Chapter 51: Forced perspective

Day in the story: 17th January (Saturday) Alexandra May as Jess Hare We lost connection to Gertrude yesterday. It was a gradual slip. I tried a few times to consciously become her, but it grew more difficult each time until it became impossible altogether. The connection was still there, stretching from me as an invisible shadowlight thread across worlds, but aside from existing and painfully slowly draining my Authority it provided nothing of substance.

I even tried to teleport Gertrude back to me, but it didn't work at all. She was stuck there. I had to trust that she could handle things on her own. But if she ever figured out how to reestablish contact, I wanted to have answers waiting for her. So now I was sitting in Victor's workshop, in the same Mirrored City where Trudy was trapped. One stop on my way to my dear Joan.

"Speak, Shadow," Liora addressed Victor in his usual calm, master-over-the-lesser-races tone—the exact kind he reserved for those he considered beneath him. Which being honest included everybody. He hovered next to me while I tried my best not to squirm in my seat. I was hooked up to some kind of shadowlight-draining machine, making good on my word to give him access to a portion of that space-bending Connection Authority.

At the same time, Liora was pressing Victor for a definitive timeline on my air-painting glove, and I let him continue uninterrupted.

"Can you tone that down, creature?" Victor shot back. They really were well matched. Both of them. The process itself wasn't painful. A band was strapped around my upper arm, and through a prism made from a fragment of soul crystal, a thick bundle of optical fibers was connected. It fed into an alchemical apparatus that distilled the energy into a strange, liquid-like, shimmering substance, which was then collected in several crystals of varying sizes.

At most, it felt like a faint tingling—nothing serious, at least according to my innate sense of Authority. That unconscious part of the Anima.

"I will speak in a manner you deserve. All you are giving Jessica are vague assurances that it will be ready when it is done. I will not tolerate that." And he clearly meant it. As always, he hovered in place.

"What is the progress? Surely you have made some, haven't you… Shadow?" He hissed the last word like a snake.

"I've been busy improving the motorcycle—the one you can take today, since it's… ready." Victor unfolded to his full height, his bent legs straightening as he supported himself with long arms. He leaned in close, his face inches from Liora's, head tilted like a curious cat. His eyes stayed in place, though. He didn't dare extend them on stalks. When he'd done that before Liora looked at them to much like on writhing worms, something to be crushed.

"Are you waiting for a laurel, Victor?" Lio asked coldly.

"Are you incapable of working on more than one thing at a time?"

"I have my own projects!" he shouted, opening his mouth wide enough to reveal mandibles hidden behind his human teeth.

"I am not at yours or your master's whims!"

"Mind your tone, Changed!" Didn't I just say how similar they were?

"Calm down, guys. Please." I stepped in. Bad cop, good cop wasn't the worst strategy here. A wave of angry reds and oranges rippled across Liora's scales, but instead of escalating, he shifted into his shadowlight form and passed straight through Victor, reappearing on the other side—just to make him uncomfortable, forcing his attention to split.

"Liora might be a bit harsh with his words, but he raises a good point, Viccy," I continued. Before Victor could interrupt, I raised a finger to stop him.

"From where I'm sitting, it feels like you're not trying hard enough. You gave me a vague deadline, and I agreed to that, but I need to know you're actually working on it." For a split second, I considered adding a threat, but didn't. He already knew what I was capable of. Saying it out loud would only make me look desperate.

"Listen to me," he started.

"We are listening!" Liora snapped with angsty teenager energy.

"Can you just shut the fuck up, you wyrm?" Victor shot back, fists clenched tight, before turning to me. Through Anansi, I nudged Liora to stay quiet—for now.

"I have the basic design ready," Victor said. He reached up to one of the cabinets mounted near the ceiling, extended himself on those grasshopper legs of his, and pulled something out. A glove. It was made of some kind of leather, with openings for the fingers and thumb. On the back sat a metallic plate embedded with several soul crystals. Thin fibers ran along the surface, tucked into seams, converging into a larger, flatter crystal in the palm.

"Looks pretty nice. Does it work?"

"Partially. I still need to find the right combination of Authorities and embed them into the crystals, so they filter the shadowlight properly and produce the intended effect. You saw the process when we built the prosthesis."

"I did. So which part works?"

"The part that reads your movements and translates them into shapes."

"So—the most important part, then?"

"Only if you don't care about color, range, or how long the construct lasts."

"Oh. I do care about all of that." I tried to keep my tone even, but my face twisted as pain flared up again. My entire left side locked up. A sharp, familiar reminder that I needed to visit Lebens again for another dose of whatever they were cooking up for me.

"Are you alright?" Victor asked, suddenly concerned. He rushed to the machine connected to me, checking the fibers as if they were the cause.

"It shouldn't cause any discomfort."

"It's not," Liora answered for me. Then, turning back to Victor: "How long do you need to solve the remaining issues?"

"I don't know. It's a conceptual problem, not a mechanical one. Could take an hour. Could take months." He met my eyes.

"I know that's not what you want to hear. But it's the truth. Not everything can be predicted or given a timeframe."

"If it's a computational problem, I could make you a few additional brains. I was planning on making a few for myself anyway. I would lend them to you and, when you are done, use them myself."

"Excuse me, but what in the Reality's name are you talking the fuck about?"

"I can create additional brains people can use. I mean, only me and one person so far have been using them, but I don't see why it wouldn't work for you. It's different from having additional eyes in the sense that instead of putting a strain on one's nervous system, it actually alleviates some of it."

"I still don't know what you mean."

"Never mind, I'll show you when I'm done." I had a theory about manipulating memory through that technique, and I wanted to test it. I might as well try it on someone with extensive knowledge I could use. When Malik used my brain, some of his memories imprinted onto it. That included the ones people tend to recall most vividly—the recent ones. But among them, I also accessed fragments of his long-term memory.

It seemed that whatever held significance for him remained accessible, as if the brain were a hard drive we shared. If my theory proved correct, I could extract important memories from others or implant experiences so vivid they would feel like their own, if I designed them just right. That could be… interesting.

"He is not the smartest genius around, is he?" Liora asked, making me laugh and Victor throw his arms into the air.

"Haven't I told you to shut up!?"

"See? He can't remember what we talked about seconds ago."

"Liora, stop this." I told him, and he actually rolled his eyes and came closer to me, laying on my lap. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"As you wish, human," he replied, though the final word carried a warmth absent from his usual tone. I was glad he tried so hard to get things done for me. It had been a productive meeting after all. Not only would I get the motorcycle, but Victor would also know not to delay his work on my account—largely thanks to the cloud serpent's insistence.

Gertrude Monkey We moved through the hallway and, despite the sameness of the walls and the rooms—and even the people—I did my fucking best to remain lucid all throughout this hellish journey. Counting steps helped a little, but the fact that we finally reached the lobby did the most good for my tired psyche.

"Finally!" Thomas shouted when we saw the sign above the doors. He rushed ahead, reaching the first room that welcomed us into this hell-house and throwing it open without hesitation. It revealed a massacre. The smell hit first. It was thick and suffocating. Statues of people we saw before stood draped in coils of intestines, pieces of stretched and slipping skin or raw muscle fragments, so slick and shining under the sharp light. Blood pooled on the floor so deeply it reflected movement.

Patches of brown and yellow broke through it where bodies had voided themselves in their final moments. It clung to boots, dragged in strings between surfaces, soaked into everything. Bodies were everywhere. Split open, crushed or peeled apart. Limbs bent in directions they weren't meant to go. Some still twitched, nerves firing blindly, fingers scraping weakly against the ground as if trying to gather themselves back together.

Banknotes were scattered among them, soaked through, stuck to flesh, plastered against faces. Some had fused into wounds. A coin the size of a sedan rested near the center, its weight crushing a mound of bodies beneath it. They were still moving in slow, desperate shifts. A hand pushed out from under the edge, fingers clawing, nails torn and slick with blood before slipping back under with a wet crunch.

And near the desk, breathing hard, his shoulders rising and falling stood Phillip Penrose, basked in a silver light of his Domain. He looked straight at us. In one hand, he held a clerk by the throat, the man's legs kicking weakly, shoes slipping in blood. In the other, a single note gleamed in the light like a sharp blade. Ramirez and two of the mercenaries were searching through the bodies of what looked like the security guards we'd met not long ago. Fuck. It was two days ago.

My memory was playing tricks on me, as if Reality was my god again. Thomas rushed toward his boss, while I moved slower. There was a buildup of fatigue in my muscles that made me sluggish. I preferred not to run, to make sure that I would still be able to when it was really needed.

"Where have you been?" Phillip asked Thomas as he approached. This place stank like the worst sewage I could imagine. If I could wish my sense of smell away, I'd have done it in an instant.

"I have no idea, sir. We went to the meeting point as instructed, but you were not there. So we searched through the rooms—""—but they were otherwise occupied," Penrose finished for him.

"Why did you not come here then?"

"We just did," I answered.

"It took you two days?" Ramirez chimed in.

"Apparently, although we have no memory of most of that time. We were walking and realized that a lot of time had passed." I gave them my recollection of events.

"I can see that you've been busy."

"Those people are monsters!" the clerk shouted toward me. His eyes darted from Phillip to Ramirez, then back to me.

"They killed all those good clients of ours." Penrose grew irritated by the outburst and threw him toward the mercenaries.

"Tie him with something. I will get back to him," he told his people, and they reached for a rope from one of their bags.

"It wasn't my initial plan. I tried talking with them. Asking, repurchasing the rooms for all of us—you two as well. I spent the entire last day doing so, but they provided no real answers about what is going on in here, so today I decided on another approach. A little show of violence can be the best incentive for peace, but alas, so far even this method proved unsubstantial in figuring out what's going on." He paused, taking a deep breath.

"It's good that you two are here, at the very least. That's a welcome development."

"It is, boss." Thomas squeezed Phillip's arm, who in turn placed his open hand over his.

"At least right now, we can be sure that killing those shadows will not bring any repercussions on our heads. I want those who rule over this place to know that my vision for what this hotel could be is the one that will remain."

"If anybody is watching, they surely took notice," I answered, looking at the massacre once more. A little show of violence, my ass. Alexandra May as Jess Hare I stood in front of the Solitary Twin for quite a while already, thinking about Nickolas, since I had no better thing to do. He'd come back changed from his trip. The most obvious change was the physical toll of his detachment from the soul core. His body had withered down, as he lost a good forty pounds of fat and muscle tissue.

His arms were weak, his legs barely able to support his weight, but he stood on his own, refusing help from Dam whenever he could. And all of this was after extensive healing sessions from both Ariana and some other people from their Domain with healing powers. And to top it off, the strangest thing was that his Shadow was already gone. Apparently, not long after it got out of the crystal, it disappeared on them, as if it had died.

Nick told me not to worry—that his body would come back to what it once was, and probably soon. And that he'd seen the shadowlight dancing around him after his shadow went missing in inaction. Which meant that it was probably already changing into a new soul core. Damn them all, those men. One went to train, leaving his girlfriend with a baby in her belly. The second is acting stranger than he has ever been, and the third went to the edge of dying just to get a new blend of magic for himself.

Were they any different than I was, though? I was also putting a strain on myself to get more magic. I too was most likely acting like a fucking lunatic when seen from the outside, and I also trained like a maniac whenever I had the chance. The only difference was that I was justifying all of my actions and seeing them from my own perspective. Was I not? [Wouldn't say so, Alexa. I mean, you are a crazy maniac, but so far whenever you could, you placed your friends above anything else. Even to your own detriment, and even when they are already dead.] You will remind me about this Rhythm fight whenever you can, right? [You need to be reminded that you are not invincible,] she kept nagging. But I already knew that and intended to work differently from now on, through proxies whenever I could. Becoming a mage that pulls the strings instead of doing everything myself was at the top of my priority list.

And yet, a few things were better done in person than through intermediaries, however close they were to me. That's why, when Joan finally emerged from their tower, I breathed out with relief. They moved slowly toward me, their naked body swaying with deliberate rhythm, hips rolling in a smooth, hypnotic motion that guided the rest of them forward. Each step traced a straight line, but their waist curved around it, drawing the eye in a way that felt intentional.

There was something undeniably alluring in that contrast. The sharp, defined structure of a man's upper body paired with the fluid softness of a woman's hips and thighs created a tension that lingered in the air. It shouldn't have worked as seamlessly as it did, yet it held together perfectly—strange, disjointed, and still whole in a way that made it difficult to look away. They were more than what the world would try to reduce them to. Something layered, something complete on its own terms.

And yet, despite that shared defiance of simple definition, we could not have been more different.

"You finally made an appearance."

"No hellos… Jess?"

"Me being here is a hello on its own. You don't write, you don't call. It's like you forgot about me."

"Our arrangement is not a job position," they replied, and I felt a slight push against my confrontational nature. They were neutering my asshole side.

"You can't expect a constant stream of tasks. We have many assets suited for different purposes. Your ability to take something or someone out in an instant is not needed right now."

"Oh. I thought we were friends after what happened."

"We don't have friends. Offering your heart like that is like building gallows for oneself. Why are you here?" they asked.

"Down to business. If you insist."

"We do."

"I came across an InterContagental and was wondering, since you are neighbors, whether you know what the hell is going on down there."

"I'd advise not to get in, as it's currently occupied by a being that would make it difficult to leave that place."

"That much I know." Well, I wasn't aware that it was a being, but it would make it easier, not more difficult.

"I was hoping for some advice on how to deal with it."

"Most eldritch beings are similar. As long as you get them out of their dimension—or whatever it is they are hiding in—it's usually relatively easy to get rid of them, even temporarily. But when they are just influencing the world around them, they will wear you down and consume your soul. That I would advise against."

"Very vague."

"I don't know what dwells in there. We had our encounters, but cut our losses, as we have nothing to gain by being there."

"Pragmatic. So no clue at all on what it is?"

"No, but focus on when it starts influencing you and you will figure out what it feeds upon. That might give you an opportunity to starve it out and force it out of hiding." They put a hand on their hip.

"Is there anything else?"

"Yes, actually. You said that vampires are in Concord, right?"

"Unfortunately."

"I've met one recently. Wasn't really a fan of how he made acquaintances."

"Neither are we. What about it?"

"I know it's a pretty naïve question, but are they killing humans? Feeding on them?"

"Not often, but it happens. Most feed, make people forget, and move on. Persuasion is one of their strong suits, so they rarely have to fight. Don't worry about them." They spoke calmly, but their other hand met their hip, suggesting a loss of patience.

"The one you met—you parted on good terms?"

"Very good. Couldn't be better."

"We are glad to hear that. If that's all—""How are you?" I interrupted them, and I could tell that the question threw them off balance.

"I know that we did not always look eye to eye on everything, but I know that some perspectives are forced upon us by situations. Most of them seem to be."

"We are managing. Thank you for asking. If you ever feel," they said, and I felt a sharp spike in my awareness. They influenced my nature on an unprecedented level, "that you want to talk about something that bothers you—a former boss," another spike hit on the word, "an unruly boyfriend, or any other issue—we would try to find the time to do so, properly." I wondered briefly whether I should let them know that I understood the signal, but decided against it for now.

Still, the encounter gave me a certain idea on how to proceed.

"Not right now, but when that happens, I will let you know," I answered, watching their body spasm a bit as their own god-boss came in to check on things.