>>5150446“Tighten security.” You instruct, voice low. “You and I may be watched, so-“
“I’ll have Val take point on guard duty. Simone can tail those two, like you said.” Em replies silently, a jolt running back down your spine as she removes her hand from your shoulder. “Tell me what you find out about Yurei. Lemme know if she had it coming.”
Slipping away to the boardroom, you will the double-doors shut behind you as you take your seat at the head of the long table within. You prefer to do research here, instead of in your room—a distinction between spaces of work and rest is key.
At least, in the real.
Closing your eyes to the drab boardroom, you utter a few syllables before opening them to a sunlit parlor, light streaming in from the bay windows to your right. Its plush, rose-colored cushions shine in the day light of the world that was, their chintz patterns on full display. It’s warm, here—a heat that’s not the humid blanket that is the Crucible’s atmosphere but rather the gentle caress of sunlight dappled on one’s skin. You’re seated not at the head of a lengthy strip of plastic and metal but rather before a simple wooden table, topped with a pot of tea with a matching cup and saucer. This cabin serves as your ‘home page’, as it were, and as you reach out to the greater Skinternet you pause as a voice that’s neither masculine nor feminine makes a familiar demand.
“Your name is?“ It asks.
“Paloma.” You answer, and you can feel the vastness of the net unfurl beyond your sight. Reaching out, you hold Carn and Esper’s faces in your mind’s eye as you proceed to pour yourself a cup, the liquid steaming like tea and flickering like static. You sip, and your mind is steeped with information, pictures and audio filtered through your rapid-fire queries.
What you learn is this; Carn and Esper reached you through no ability of their own. Indeed, neither of them are powerful enough to have made it over the Spine unassisted. Even with Calliope and her opportunistic hangers-on lending them a hand, the pair you encountered in the food court could have only reached the Spine on their own through some combination of supreme luck and divine providence. They’ve been awake for eight months between them, with only a handful of conquests to their names. No, they were led here by someone possessed of a much greater combat ability, but to what end?
To your acute frustration, it takes three more refills to come up with a void—visual records show the two being led by some sort of blot, evidence of some type of masking relic or ability hiding them from a Skintalker’s perception, something Carn and Esper were either unaware or unable to do themselves. Tracking the mysterious figure back as far as records allow, it’s with a last, tremulous drop of liquid that you link the masked being’s origin point to Arcadia before both their trail—and your tea—run dry.
(Continued)
