Quoted By:
"May I inquire as to why you are asking this?" Mox adjusts her mask yet again. You didn't notice it at first, but there's something glistening around the edges of her mask. Odd.
"Curiosity, frankly, but I also want to know more about you."
Edward tries to change the subject with a smooth, airy laugh. "C'mon. Is that your way of flirting with a girl, Vincent?" There's a trace of nervous energy in his words. He CLEARLY doesn't want you to press this topic any further.
"Are you—" You stop yourself. You decide it's probably best not to pry, waiting to see how Mox responds.
>1 SUCCESS.
"Fear is a natural response to my presence." Mox responds matter-of-factly. "He understands the...risk of the question you asked me. Even if you are unaware of what that risk is." Oh, great, she's going to spout out some cryptic nonsense. You're already starting to tune her out.
"The robot I captured has a commonality with me. I'm able to...deal with assets that ARC deems 'unsalvageable.'" She tilts her neck at a sheer, awkward angle that looks REALLY uncomfortable to hold. Her piercing stare is almost enough to peel your skin off layer by layer. "Be glad that ARC sees you as useful for the time being."
"I simply enforce their will. How I do so is not something I am willing to disclose to you at this time."
Wow! How vague and potentially ominous! You rapidly nod your head, trying your best to not show the fear on your face. You take Edward's hint and change the topic. "So, speaking about ARC. You said it wasn't always like this, right? This weird, cryptic, and vaguely ominous organization?"
"Mmh hmm."
"Could you possibly tell me what caused them to change?"
Edward lets out a long, drawn-out sigh. "That's a long story, kid. A long story, but a story that's been recounted hundreds of times before. See, for all intents and purposes, ARC doesn't legally exist."
"FBI, CIA, ATF—sure, they can get away with some fucked-up stuff. If you knew every off-the-record thing they did, your head would detach like a Krasue's. But they still legally exist. People know about them. ARC? We're not supposed to exist."
"See, here's the thing." Edward takes another swig from his rotgut bottle. "We're the only government-backed organization in the world tasked with dealing with anomalies. ARC, as it exists now, was the pet project of the last president in office." Right. You don't recall who, though; you don't keep up with politics.
"But, well, a new president from another party got elected. One who saw this whole organization as nothing but a waste of time. So he started to defund it."
You can't even try to hide your confusion. Anomalies, reality-warping entities, exist, but containing them is a waste of time? Edward chuckles as he sees the bewilderment washing over you.
"Why set aside 10 billion dollars for ARC when you can pour that money into the war machine instead? Financial quarter after financial quarter, the money the government gives us dries up more and more."
