Chương 66: The Sphere

Their business exchange had gotten off to a pretty bad start—but the fact that Luigi hadn't started shooting yet despite everything was practically a counter-offer. Kelly's eyebrows rose, genuinely impressed by the display of weapons the shopkeeper possessed—a small fortune of hardware, enough to kill the old her a hundred times over and still leave change for a latte. How had he even afforded this? The past, younger, and clearly dumber her had taken a monumental risk scamming this man out of his wares.

Normally, given their apparent history, the intern would have taken the hint and retreated, found someone easier to deal with. A less explode-y experience. But she had a mission to fulfill. She slung her rifle onto her back, a cheap magnet holding it in place, and kept her molecular melee weapon in its dormant wristband form. Appearing unarmed, Kelly searched in her lab coat, ignoring the various low-budget action movies' worth of weapons Luigi was pointing at her.

She brought out a big tub of tiny glass canisters from her shadow, each one smaller than a nail. She held a bunch in her hand and began to squeeze very slowly. Luigi's face went the color of old milk.

"What the—what the hell is that?" His voice cut off as gravity increased and pressed his shoulders down.

"It's a gravity enhancement serum. Or maybe it's a jar of terrible standing. Or a very small apocalypse? I dunno. Depends on your perspective," Kelly said, tilting her hand as the first canister burst.

"I said I was sorry, and I am, really. But do you think this is a heartfelt apology for my past business practices? Because it's not." Another canister popped, and red blood-like liquid swirled from her palm, rising to form a bone halo above her head. Gravity slowly increased. The building began to tremble and groan around them. Gun mounts rattled. Shelves shook. Items slid and jittered across the counter.

"How are you doing that? Stop now or I swear to God I'll shoot," Luigi said.

"Each of these I pop increases the gravity by one gee. If all of them pop, you're going to be flatter than a coin left on a train track. If I die, you won't even get to scream, because you and this whole building will be a crater filled with bad pricing and lost product." At the sight of the red halo and the canisters in her hand, Luigi's face lost all color. His main gun strained, staying locked on her vitals.

"You know what this is," Kelly said, lifting her hand as the air thickened and pressed down.

"If you don't lower your weapons, I'm going to keep squeezing until this whole building comes down on us. And if the building doesn't kill you, the mist will, or worse."

"But that would kill you too!" With the right Titles equipped in sequence, It wouldn't kill her, it would just sting a lot. Like a heat rash. And if her suit or gas mask was in danger, she could always just step in to her shadow.

"Yeah, but you would die first." She stared into Luigi's eyes, intense.

"Business is business," Kelly argued, "I'm looking for some construction units, scaffolding types, or anything that can hold up a section of a bridge the size of two buildings."

"Anything works, it doesn't have to be a construction mech," Kelly replied, glancing at the establishment with disappointment. She didn't have the time or interest in learning how to build a non-combat one herself, and never had—just to keep a building protected long enough for it to be exploded, the ROI would've been abysmal. And Luigi was looking to be a dead end.

His wares were notoriously in bad condition, but what made his store special was the fact that regardless of the fact it would be in a state of disrepair, you could find almost anything in there. It just needed a bit of upkeep and refurbishing.

"What about the stuff you've got in the back?" Kelly asked.

"What? Who told you about that? That stuff's not for sale." Luigi jumped back, startled, as Kelly closed the gap between the counter and himself in the blink of an eye. She began pulling a collection of gear from her shadow—guns, cybernetic parts, a few pieces that looked suspiciously biomechanical, and even what seemed to be an invader weapon. It was a gold mine of equipment, some of it fully intact, all retrieved from a patch of darkness on the floor. Luigi stared at her shadow as it moved, perfectly normal.

He'd heard of shrink boxes, big ugly things, but he'd never seen tech that worked like this.

"Luigi, my incredible business partner," Kelly cooed sweetly.

"Show me everything." The shopkeeper let out a sigh of disgust.

"Fine. All of that stuff you pulled out of your shadow better be jailbroken or biometrics-free, I don't want my clients getting traced. How'd you do that, anyway?"

"I'm an immortal magician," Kelly said, her tone dead serious.

"And a baby god of time. Still figuring that part out, to be honest. The warranty pamphlet was terrible."

"Fine, keep your secret tech. If you're ever selling, I can hook you up with the auction house," Luigi grumbled. Kelly had never heard of it. According to Luigi, it was above her paygrade, a venue for the higher rollers of New York's underworld. Her shadow-tech looked like advanced, miniaturized shrink-box tech, and since shrink-boxes were rare and new, that meant she had something worth the auction house's time.

At her refusal, Luigi shrugged and headed towards a well-hidden, practically invisible doorway in the back.

"Follow me." The entire wall unfolded and shifted, revealing a hidden room. They entered and the walls sealed behind them. Kelly spotted the same type of elite-grade weaponry in the corners, including another Bonebreaker missile. The room was a treasure trove of relatively rare or valuable items, some broken, some pristine, arranged around a large glass safe. One item caught her attention.

It was a sphere roughly the size of her head, its design signature Deadtech, Jennie's work, but much larger than the usual pieces. She made a beeline to the sphere, encased in an impenetrable glass box.

"What does it do?"

"Nobody really knows," Luigi admitted.

"But we got it to project a temporary hardlight wall. The thing has the tensile strength of composite-reinforced carbon steel; all light-based. Obviously impossible, but that's what makes relics so special. It's configurable, but not good for anything but temporary home decor, or maybe a shelter. Not very useful." Kelly was only half-listening.

"This is the largest one I've ever seen. How do you have this?"

"Some golden-eyed old woman dropped it off. Wants me to sell it at the Mistmarket's auction house." Kelly's eyes widened.

"Did you say bright golden eyes? Like a mutant, or—""No. Not like a mutant." Luigi shook his head.

"She was tall, young—maybe mid-twenties—with long, silver-white hair. She was obsessed with pre-Collapse ceramics. Vintage stuff. Spent hours digging through cracked plates and vases like they were treasure. A real weirdo." You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. He paused.

"But," he added, "kind of sexy, too. Which made it even weirder."

"Wait. What?"

"I'm just saying, there's a ratio between weirdness and sex appeal. It applies to pretty much everyone. Weirdness and sex appeal don't always cancel each other out. Sometimes they go together. The stranger someone is, the more or less attractive they should be—depends on the person—sometimes it works the other way. With her, it shouldn't have worked at all. But…" He shrugged.

"It did." Kelly stared at him.

"I'm just saying. I don't understand it either." Luigi leaned back.

"Anyway, she showed up at the market about two months ago and started dealing with the auction house. Turned a few stores upside down with all the gear she was carrying." Kelly frowned. She had never heard about that.

"Apparently, she caused a pretty big scene," Luigi continued.

"Used some kind of relic to turn an entire street's worth of sewage into pink foam. Glittering pink foam. Non-toxic, supposedly. It took the cleanup crews half a day to get rid of it."

"That happened here?"

"You missed it." He gave her a look.

"Most people tried." Kelly glanced toward the crowded market.

"So who was she?"

"I figured she was one of the auction house's VIP clients. One of those guys who wants to do business without the police, Han Cyber, Crystal Nanotech, or Vaughn trying to muscle in and claim the tech for themselves. We get people like that sometimes."

"People with relics that turn sewage into foam?"

"Usually less showy, sure." Luigi lowered his voice.

"But what always struck me as odd was that she didn't have any security with her. Most of those people travel with at least two or three guards."

"Maybe she didn't need them."

"That's what I thought. Figured it was because of her crazy high EQ, or maybe she had enough leverage—or enough dangerous equipment—that nobody wanted to test her." He glanced toward the market entrance.

"But even someone like that should be careful around the upper echelon. They don't need an excuse to take an interest and there ain't an EQ high enough to back 'em down." Years ago, the city had a proper market for would-be inventors. People like her, who didn't have the resources for self-sufficiency but refused to sign their lives over to a corp.

These days, with corruption so deeply embedded in the city's wiring, the only way to start without some corporate suit taking ninety percent of your pie was to go through the underworld. Kelly nodded and didn't speak, her focus locked entirely on the shopkeeper. This rapturous attention, this complete lack of her usual irreverence, was new to Luigi. It made him talk faster, figuring his words actually mattered.

"Anyway, she scavenged a whole hoard of relics. God knows how. Some from the coups, some from the war with the Tüin, a few pieces of Deadtech—she even had a relic from the Augment Wars, the lucky bitch. No offense. She kept asking me to sell it all through the auction house. Don't know why she picked me. Made me a fortune. So we met often."

"Did she have a belt that doubled as a shotgun? Kind of thick? It expands like this." Kelly spread her hands apart to demonstrate.

"And painted nails—different colors, like someone mixed ink on each one?"

"Yeah." Luigi pulled a strange face.

"Why? You know her? Who is she, really?"

"Yeah," Kelly said, a little breathless.

"I know her the way you know how to scam people and how fast your hair is thinning."

"I'm not that bald."

"I didn't say you were bald. I said you were familiar with the subject." Luigi frowned, but she continued.

"So... yeah," she said, slightly breathless.

"I know Jennie better than I know anyone. I know the shape of her face, the way she walks, the things she lies about. I know her like the back of her hand or the way I know the layout of my own home—including every place where the walls don't quite meet the floor."

"That's a little unsettling."

"Probably." Kelly looked at him.

"What else did you hear?" Luigi rubbed the side of his head.

"The hair loss is from high testosterone, just so you know."

"Luigi."

"Fine." He sighed.

"She sold a lot of relics through the auction house. Helped a few families, too. She robbed the Charlestons, though. God knows why. They're a nice family."

"Robbed them how?"

"I don't know. I only heard about it afterward." He shifted in his chair.

"I figured she was passing through, so I charged her as much as I could."

"You overcharged her?"

"I charged her what I thought she could afford."

"Luigi."

"She didn't complain." Kelly stared at him.

"Not much," he added. He hesitated, then lowered his voice.

"The golden-eyed woman… she's unusual, isn't she?" Kelly nodded.

"I heard some of the local gangs tried to ambush her." Luigi shuddered.

"They spent weeks cleaning blood and pieces of people off the walls. A few of them started changing before they finally died." Kelly said nothing.

"Dumb fucks," Luigi muttered.

"Who tries to rob an Elite?" That sounded like Jellybean, alright. She had always had a chaotic sense of right and wrong. A puppy that read every holy book, decided it loved the message, but hated the devil, and God, and every private company that ever printed a copy. Then tried to enslave half the world because of it.

"And after that?" Kelly asked.

"What happened?"

"What happened?" Luigi leaned forward.

"You'll never guess. The government heard there was a goldmine in all those relics and sent the National Guard to tax it."

"To tax it?"

"That's what they called it. They raided the auction house and claimed they had the right to confiscate everything. But really, nobody had paid them enough to look the other way." He glanced toward the door.

"Crooks."

"What happened to her?"

"I heard Vaughn Industries got her out. That's all. No one knows where she went after that." He gave a nervous little laugh.

"For all I know, she's lying on a beach somewhere on Jupiter."

"Jupiter doesn't have beaches."

"You know what I mean." Kelly did. This confirmed it. Vaughn was her best chance of finding Jennie. The government capturing her meant they had a file. The fact she escaped meant that file was useless. Nobody knew who she really was. At last, Kelly had a real lead. Jennie was with Vaughn. Kelly laughed aloud, and for the first time in weeks, there wasn't a hint of sadness buried within its depths.

Kelly let out a low whistle. A real grin spread across her face—the first in what felt like days. She hadn't come to Luigi's shop looking for a lead. She'd found one anyway.

"Well, look at that," she said.

"I just hit the mother lode by accident. This is a very good day." The information was better than anything she'd uncovered in years. She looked at Luigi.

"For this, and for the Deadtech sphere, I'm going to change your life."

"Change my life?" The shopkeeper's face twisted with disdain.

"What're you, Jesus? A pop idol? You sing or something?"

"No. But I do have the voice of an angel." She wasn't a pop star, and she wasn't a religious figure. More importantly, she couldn't change his life forever. She could only change it for today. The 'forever' project was still in development. Luigi opened his mouth to tell her to get lost. Then he paused. Suspicion gave way to calculation.

"You're serious?"

"Fatally." Kelly always paid her debts, even if it took a thousand resets. Luigi considered that.

"All right. I've got nothing to lose. If you have something worth the sphere, we can make a deal." He placed his hands on the glass case, his fingers tracing its seams. He stopped, turning to her before triggering the lock.

"Cough it up, Michael Jackson."

"I told you, my voice is angelic—timeless even, but I'm not a singer; my choir is a demolition crew." Kelly said, uploading the full schematics for the monomolecular blade to a data packet and handing it over. She hadn't visited Genecorp for a sanction yet—she hadn't visited anyone. The data packet was unpatented and unclaimed. If Luigi sold the rights, he would be rich. At least for today. She would find a better way to repay him once she finally hit 100EQ and broke past this day. The weapon wasn't perfect.

She'd always known it could be overcome with the right magic. The undead knight's defensive fields had proven that. She doubted it would even scratch the angel—was it Vermir? Verrimisir? —whatever his possessed-pigeon name was. She had watched him block deadlier near-light-speed impacts than she could currently dish out. And she planned to improve the design today with whatever she learned from studying the magic staffs and crystals anyway.

The tech was a revolutionary blend of fields that produced the sharpest portable edge humanity had ever made, giving them another tool against the current climate, albeit with expensive material costs. If Luigi sold the rights, he'd be set for life. Today, anyway. In the future, once she'd broken past this day, she'd find a better, less proprietary way to repay him.

Luigi stared, reading the schematics blurring across his vision, his eyes widening with each line of the tool's basic description and the video demonstration she'd so helpfully attached.

"Is this real?" he asked, his voice hushed. Kelly flicked her wrist. The thick bracelet unfolded into a scalpel, then a bat, then a machete, its edge cleanly slicing a sliver off Luigi's apparently impenetrable wall. The molecular blade collapsed back into a harmless, fashionable bracelet.

"It's real. As real as your browser history getting you into trouble." Luigi's face flushed with excitement, likely picturing his future riches, before he calmed himself, his enterprising nature taking over.

"You know the hardlight sphere has other functions we haven't figured out. That makes it even more valuable. I'm still taking a loss," he lied. Kelly folded her arms.

"Open the case, Luigi." He smiled faintly.

"Now who's in a hurry?"