Chương 144: B3. 4.2 - An Eventful Shopping Interruption

"What do you want?" I nonchalantly asked, though I was raging inside. My normal life was at risk. This was the closest my secrets came to being exposed. Actually, I was already exposed—to the PCM. I could wipe them out; there was no issue with that. But if I were in their shoes, I'd report my ass to the BID. Better blast it to the public in general. Mutually assured destruction. However, that didn't seem to be Auron's intention in meeting with us.

Auron placed his hands on the table and steepling his fingers into a triangle. That was a signature evil boss move. I should be the one doing that. He said, "I must preface our discussion by saying that we are not a threat to you."

"You are not," Deen said. Damn, that's a good comeback. I should've thought of it first. Deen was stealing my limelight as usual.

"We are not threatening harm to Doctor Hartwell either." Auron tilted his head back towards Mom.

"We didn't expect her to be here. Thankfully, my colleagues are talkative enough to keep her occupied. Some of them have backgrounds in the augmentations industry."

"I don't particularly care about my mother. You can't use her as a bargaining chip for whatever it is you want from us," I said, wondering if this was the right thing to say. Cecilia had discovered Myra's artificial Core. The PCM should be aware that there was another organization tinkering with human experiments. Not sure if the PCM bought that this was a secret government project—if it were true, threatening to expose us to the public would work just the same. The Corebring would come to wipe us out.

My chosen angle was to be a brainwashed test subject willing to do anything to protect the project's secrecy. I didn't care about my biological mother, and I was ready to kill Auron and everyone else in this café if necessary. A sense of giddiness tickled me. This was my first time trying a mask like this. Deen squeezed my knee again. Probably a rebuke for what I had said. But she kept silent.

"Of course, of course," Auron said, waving his hand as if shooing a fly.

"An Adumbrae wouldn't care about her parents." Adumbrae? Another knee squeeze. This time, I was sure that Deen and I were thinking the same thing. Did Cecilia not tell Auron about the artificial Cores? Or was this some kind of mind game that I couldn't see the point of? Possible that the annoying head scientist wanted to keep Myra's true nature a secret, at least for a little while, to tinker with the Core. This explained Auron's absence at the PCM base outside the city.

Still, Auron knew enough about us to track us down. I had to carefully discern what information died with the PCM's second-ranking guy and Cecilia.

"Are we really going to talk about that here?" I flicked my eyes left and right. The tables around us were occupied.

"They are all my colleagues. Fellow members of PCM." Auron was committed to his 'I'm-not-the-leader' bit. A person from each of the tables nearby turned to look at us and nodded. This is cool as fuck! Filing this in my newly-formed mental cabinet of things to do when I have more minions. Not the gangsters. They'd be super conspicuous if I planted them anywhere except seedy settings.

"You're well prepared," I said.

"What do you want us to tell our boss, Red Hood? I assume that you're passing along some message. A very important message, it seems, that you'll even risk showing up in public despite having a warrant issued for your arrest." This was another test. If Cecilia told Auron everything, Auron should know that Red Hood wasn't our boss. Cecilia offered me, as Red Hood, an alliance against the organization making the artificial Cores. He had no reason to pretend otherwise.

"We need your help," Auron said.

"Red Hood and every bit of firepower at her disposal. We barely have any to deploy after your group decimated our ranks." He didn't point out that Myra's group and Red Hood's group were different. In fact, last Friday was the first 'official' fight between Red Hood and the PCM. It filled me with joy to know that Auron had the wrong information. I retained the upper hand despite him knowing our identities. But we might have to play ball with whatever game this was.

"You're asking for help from Red Hood after we had killed so many of you?" Deen was quick to play along while continuing to squeeze my knee. She might be trying to message me with Morse Code or something. I had no idea what she was trying to convey.

"It doesn't make sense," I added.

"You humans are supposed to be logical creatures. Mostly."

"We come to Red Hood because no one else has the capacity or willingness to help us," Auron said.

"The importance of the matter requiring your aid supersedes the lives lost of our members."

"Why don't you ask for help from Big Marcy or even Euphonia?" I asked. Casual name-dropping to make it seem like we knew more than we did. But it might've been a wrong move.

"You should know why not," Auron simply said. Whoopsies. I had no clue about the 2Ms perspective on the PCM's troubles. And what was Euphonia's part in all of this? The only thing clear here was that the 2Ms and Euphonia wouldn't be appearing for this season.

"And why are you so sure that Red Hood will help?" Deen hastily asked to cover up my potential mistake. Auron pointed at us.

"The two of you will convince Red Hood to fight for us."

"Let's hear the consequences if we don't do that," I said. The bastard PCM not-leader smiled.

"Your human lives, all of these comforts you enjoy, will end. Ah! Ah!" He raised his finger as I opened my mouth to speak.

"We've extensively studied Adumbrae, and we know that many of you enjoy living like a human, eating food, listening to music, experiencing emotions, and so on. Others don't. But I believe that you are of the former group."

"Are you sure?" I asked, smiling.

"You seem confident of it." Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. This sort of confirmed what I have learned from my short interaction with Keke, Kelsey's Adumbrae—those otherworldly entities were having a fun vacation in our dimension. On that note, what about Spooky Erind? She had told me that she was trying to protect me to protect herself. Very different from Keke.

"You two have very comfortable lives," Auron said.

"In contrast, most Adumbrae spring from desperate… tortured people in deplorable situations. You seem to be enjoying the… amenities… that came with your host bodies." He waved his hand at the drinks on our table.

"It is fun to be Amber Deen Leska," said Deen.

"Furthermore, there was some attempt on your part to hide your identities," Auron went on.

"Not a very good attempt, I must say, or we never would've found you. But an attempt, nonetheless. Proof that you value maintaining human lives to some extent."

"You wouldn't have found us if we didn't free our fellows that you had captured," I reminded him. They were the first to strike us, and we were 'in the right' to take revenge.

"Yes… Yes… We apologize for that. But that's another point showing how you value your human lives, keeping them intact as much as possible by rescuing part of the circle of your human friends. You even retain your human forms. A massive effort on your part, no doubt. Lastly… you haven't killed me and everyone here… because I speak that truth, and you want to listen to what I have to say."

"Which is?" Deen asked.

"The BID scutters along the tunnels and bunkers under the city. They have found many of our… establishments, but not all. The most important base remains safe… for now. It contains records of our experiments and… other things."

"I'm guessing that the 'other things' include stuff about us," I said.

"Now, you want us to navigate the maze of tunnels under the city, fight the police and BID agents, reach this central base of yours, and destroy everything there? Something about being beneficial to us and you. Our identities are safe, while you are… Well, you're already fucked. Less fucked?" Deen dug her fingers into my knee. She must've been surprised when I used the word 'fucked'. The Erind face that I presented to her barely cursed. I'd explain to her later that I was acting tough.

"That's the basic of it. Onto the… details." Auron took out a small item from his chest pocket. It looked like a bulky USB drive.

"We need you to plug this into the computer there to make sure that the data is wiped out." I broke into laughter, surprising Auron and Deen. Even the PCM members in neighboring tables turned to look.

"We have access to the minds of our hosts. Don't think of us as dumb aliens who don't know what's going on." Auron's left eyelid twitched. He kept up his smile.

"I'm not—""Why destroy all that data when you can retrieve it?" I pointed at the USB stick.

"That's supposed to download your files or something, isn't it? Or it'll send instructions for your computers to send your files elsewhere."

"The BID must've destroyed your cables." Deen gave me a sidelong glance, syncing with me via the best friend connection.

"You have no way of getting the files."

"Files about your experiments of turning Adumbrae back into humans," I said.

"Files about our identities."

"Files that we wouldn't want you to have," added Deen. We sounded like we could read each other's minds. A bit inhuman.

"We can take this USB drive and not plug it in," I said.

"We can pretend to work with you, but instead destroy everything that remotely looks like a computer when we reach your central underground base. But you have a countermeasure for that, don't you? Something to make sure that we'll cooperate with you. Out with it and don't waste our time." Auron smiled while slowly nodding.

"I didn't expect I'd need to reveal my… threat… so early. I'm making myself a liar after leading with an assurance that I wasn't threatening you. Here it is—the data we hope to retrieve is valuable beyond measure for our group. Machines can be rebuilt. Experiments redone. But with Cecilia gone, we cannot restart our efforts without her data. We might as well be blind mice poking holes in cheese." What the fuck did that expression mean? It sounded cool, but I couldn't decipher what it was supposed to convey.

But I'd find a use for it someday.

"It's the end of our group if that data is lost," Auron continued.

"And if everything is lost… then we might as well take you down with us."

"Mutually assured destruction," I said with a smirk. I had thought of this earlier! Very cool delivery. That should be included in the trailer. Hey, that rhymed!

"Exactly," the bastard PCM not-leader replied.

"If you don't do as we instructed, then we will reveal your inhumanity to the world. You wouldn't want that, would you? The BID and Corebrings will have a say in your existence."

"You can also expose us even if we go along with your plan," Deen said.

"And you can destroy all of us," said Auron.

"Once we have Cecilia's data, we wouldn't want to be destroyed now, do we? With the PCM given renewed hope, we will continue ahead with our plans to save humanity from Adumbrae."

"Giving you the data will be to our detriment," I said.

"Why would we help you when you'll attack us someday?"

"Someday—that's the reason. Time." Auron tapped his wristwatch.

"We'll buy time. For both of our groups. Success wouldn't come quickly to the PCM. A few years. Longer. You have plenty of time to enjoy your human lives while we work on our project. We will clash again someday. For now, let us help each other."

"You mean that we'll help you," I said.

"So that you won't bring us all down."

"You make it sound as if I'm taking advantage of you. In actuality, if you don't do anything, the BID will find Cecilia's files. You need my directions to reach that place. How about it?" Auron looked over his shoulder. Mom was waving goodbye to Broccoli Head and friends. They tried to continue talking to her, but she refused to stay.

"We need time to talk to Red Hood and decide," Deen said.

"This can't wait too long," Auron said.

"Let us meet tomorrow." He gave us a time and place, already expecting that we wouldn't immediately answer.

"If Red Hood refuses, you two can still come. It's your lives on the line while Red Hood stays hidden." I snorted.

"Ah, don't try to drive a wedge between Red Hood and us."

"Thank you for your time, ladies from another world." Auron put his hat back on and tipped it towards Mom before leaving. Mom glared at him as she sat down.

"Who was that guy? Was he harassing you?"

"A bit," I said, glancing at the PCM members at the table beside us.

"He claims to be a recruiter for a modeling agency and was trying to convince Deen to apply. Deen could probably buy his agency many times over."

"I'm not interested in modeling," Deen said, tapping my leg with hers.

"You girls should be careful with stalkers," Mom said.

"This is a big city. You get all sorts of crazies here. And you're both very beautiful. You'll attract—""I'm beautiful, too, Mom?" I asked.

"But you shouldn't put me on the same level as Deen. That's an insult to her." Another hidden kick from Deen.

"Erind sweetie, I'm being serious," Mom said.

"Promise me that you'll be careful. Stay in public places. Always have people around you. Don't follow suspicious men. Or women! Kidnappers could be anyone."

"I promise, Mom," I said with a straight face.

"I wouldn't want to be kidnapped." My first time getting kidnapped wasn't exactly great. After leaving the café, Deen and I slowed our pace to put some distance between Mom and us.

"What are we going to do?" Deen asked.

"This… is the way we bring in Dario." Plans brewed in my head.

"How? He's not going to listen to us. How will we even explain this to him? We're not going to reveal the truth to him, are we?"

"Of course not. We won't do the talking. Reo will."