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Chapter 285: Sweet ride o' mine
🕑 Added 2023-06-16 09:34:46 +0000 UTCI exit the pocket dimension with a frown, and it’s not due to having to knock on Kaitlynn’s anti-Espir barrier and politely wait before I can leave. Honestly, I could have broken through in a second if there was an actual emergency.
Sudo being part of a secret police force doesn’t count as one, even if it’s messy and dangerous. Still, if we can get away with taking control of her, this could also turn out to be a massive win.
Outside I’m met with a rather wholesome scene.
Loudmouth is bawling his eyes out on the porch of his little lake house, blubbering about ‘Tinyhead’ and ‘Friends getting back together’ as he hugs a slightly exasperated-looking Jacob to his green chest.
Kaitlynn and Alec are watching from the side, but while Kaitlynn looks quite touched and endeared, Alec has a completely blank look on his face.
I blink in surprise, having expected more emotion from him at being reunited with—
My palm hits my face. He’s still under my Commands...
I quickly pull on the strings connecting me to the chains of Espir binding his avatar, and allow them to unravel.
The moment he’s released from them, Alec doubles over in laughter. When he manages to straighten up, a surprised look on his face, I detect a hint of moisture in the corners of his eyes as well, so I’m sure he’s happy about more than just the funny business in front of him.
“Nonya!” he calls out upon spotting me, drawing the attention of the rest towards me as well. “About damn time you released me!”
“I had slightly more important matters to attend to, Alec,” I drawl as I come floating over. “Speaking of... hey Jacob.”
Jacob smiles crookedly at me once Loudmouth releases him. “Well, if it isn’t the Toxic Dragon Girl herself. Though I hear you’re more of a Kraken these days?”
I roll my eyes before mock-punching him in the shoulder.
My immaterial fist naturally passes through him ineffectually, but he gamely plays along, letting out an ‘oof’ and rubbing his shoulder.
“I bust my ass to save you, and this is how you thank me?” I complain. “See if I’ll do it again, Emo-boy.”
“Maybe I’ll thank you by saving you next time,” he counters. “Actions speak louder than words, and all that.”
I bite my lip to contain my smile, but my eyes don’t comply, so I give up. “It’s good to see you, Jacob.”
“You too, Emma.”
Loudmouth looks like he’s ready to start bawling again, so before he can disrupt the group’s current focus, I look around and raise my voice to address all of them. “All right gang, despite this perhaps being a rather hare-brained scheme, it seems we managed to pull it off without a hitch. Alec, you were great out there. Well done, man.”
He stands up straight and salutes me, a happy grin on his face. “Anytime, Cap’n!”
“However, I learned some stuff from Sudo which complicates matters,” I continue. “We’re going to need to be very careful about our next moves with her, so I’d like to invite all of you to help consider our options...”
Huddled together in Loudmouth’s cottage, we quickly come to the conclusion that having a thirdPeilor decide to suddenly shirk all of their duties on this estate—let alone a secret intelligence officer—would be far too suspicious.
That means there’s no time right now to move Sudo over to the Realm of Imagination for a full interrogation, as her schedule is far too packed.
While I don’t know all the details yet, the broad picture I got from her is that she tracks down and monitors dissidents among the Peilor, and has been responsible for a number of ‘mysterious disappearances,’ though she doesn’t know exactly where those Peilor end up.
My money is on Starlight Palace.
While Suri didn’t have to hold it open as long as last time, she still complains about the pocket dimension after a while, so we decide to let Sudo out.
Unlike with Farouq, there should be little chance of her rapidly wearing down my Commands and managing to signal someone for help—especially since I packed her in extra thick—so we have her float in the centre for further questioning.
And it’s a good thing we do.
It turns out Jacob wasn’t actually aware of Sudo’s hidden identity, but now that he is, he’s starting to piece some things together.
“Sudo,” he asks during a lull in the discussion. “That important call you have to make once every five days, that I’m never allowed to witness... is that to check in with your superiors?”
Sudo’s spider-like spiritform stiffens. “Yes,” she chimes tersely.
“And what happens if you don’t make it?” I ask in growing alarm.
“They start an internal investigation,” she grinds out.
Cold sweat breaks out on my back. If we’d Commanded her something like ‘Go about your daily life as usual,’ would that have been enough to force her to make that call?
I doubt it.
“Well that won’t do,” Suri chimes coolly. “In fact, please tell us every single way which you suspect your co-workers might find out that you’ve been compromised.”
Yes! Nice one, Suri.
I can practically feel Sudo’s avatar writhing in her chains in her attempt to not answer that question, but answer it she does, in one long rant about protocols and dead-man’s switches set to go off.
Finally, she most grudgingly tells us about a Core-check for Commands, performed roughly once every three Earth months.
My Imaginary heart pounds in my throat at that, but it turns out that we’re in luck—relatively speaking—and she’s been checked two weeks ago.
Her next check wouldn’t be until shortly after Earth gets Portalled over.
I blow out a breath and sag back onto the couch next to Kaitlynn in relief. Her hand finds mine, and I cling to her.
In the end, we’re still faced with a hard decision. Or perhaps more like a difficult conclusion that seems increasingly inevitable as our discussion nears its natural conclusion, and we lay out the facts.
It’s Suri who cuts through the hemming and hawing, and brings it up. “All right, we’re all thinking it,” she chimes firmly. “And if no one else will say it, I’ll be the bogeyman. Jacob, I’m sorry, but you’re going to need to return with Sudo; it’d be too suspicious if you didn’t.”
I sigh, but can’t disagree.
Sudo has other hosts but she’s been using Jacob a lot as he’s by far her most prestigious one, and as a Pellucid-tier Peilor, she has to keep up appearances.
Having him stay with us, in body or spirit, would indeed be suspicious.
Jacob shrugs, but I can tell from the tension in his face that he doesn’t like it.
“If that’s how it is, so be it,” he says gruffly. “It’s a small price to pay in the scheme of things.”
Once again, I detest my inability to properly hug my fleshling friends.
While what he’s saying isn’t wrong, he’s leaving out the part where he’s at risk of getting the tables turned back on him by Sudo, and losing the very freedom he just regained.
But I’m not about to dissuade him when he’s being a trooper. “We’ll put some Commands on you to help prevent you from breaking character,” I say instead, hardening my heart. “Just to be safe. Nothing too confining either, just... kinda like what I did with Alec, earlier, but more glare-y, as that seemed to be your default under Sudo.”
Jacob nods. “That’s fine. Or helpful, rather. It’ll be a lot less stressful if I don’t have to actively keep a poker face.”
After that, we settle on a thorough set of Commands for Sudo, that should cover all the different ways her situation could be discovered—though it’s mainly Suri’s work.
She is clearly thriving on this whole secret-police thing. I reckon it’s mainly that she loves the challenge, but perhaps also that she finds some thrill in trying to outsmart them.
By the time I’m done placing all of the Commands we came up with, Sudo’s avatar looks more like a ball of twine than a spider.
No way she’s getting out of those anytime soon.
Finally, the time comes when she and Jacob have to leave, as they’re scheduled for a match after Twinset.
“Don’t worry,” he says, seeing Kaitlynn’s rather anxious expression. “In case you haven’t caught on yet, those matches are all fake; I’ll be in no real danger.”
He says it quite convincingly, but after the way he and Alec smacked each other around during the ‘sparring match’ earlier, I’m sure it’s still quite a risky and painful spectacle to take part in. I guess that’s not too different from Earth’s pro wrestling, then; those guys tend to die young from too many head injuries and whatnot.
“Still, be careful with him, you got that, Sudo?” I tell his forehead sternly. Sudo flashes her Lavi in the affirmative.
However, Jacob shakes his head. “No. Sudo has to act like everything is normal,” he stresses. “Seriously, whatever happens out there, I can handle. Her colleagues cannot grow suspicious.”
“I have to agree,” Suri chimes. “We can’t take any risks regarding this.”
I sigh and share a glance with Kaitlynn. She doesn’t look happy about it, but still nods.
“Fine,” I say curtly. “Sudo, you heard him. Business as usual.”
Once more, she flashes in the affirmative.
“Thank you,” Jacob says softly. “Now, if you really want to help spare me some pain, then hurry up and come up with a good plan to get Dave. We’re going to need him if we’re to save Earth, and I’ve got a big family, most of which wouldn’t last a second out here.”
And on that note, we move out to see him off at the gate. It’s not easy, watching him fly off under Sudo’s Gravity Manipulation, but hopefully it’ll all be worth it.
It better be.
“He’s going to be fine, right?” Kaitlynn asks softly, from her perch on Loudmouth’s forehead.
“He is,” I reply from Alec’s greasy brow. “Now let’s head back. We need to report to the Realm of Imagination.”
Kaitlynn stays behind with Loudmouth to fend off solicitors, while Suri and I take Alec to the Realm of Imagination.
He’s been here before, of course, though only ever under the guise of it being a ‘dreamscape’ conjured up for a Skilldream.
As his Espir Pool is truly pitiful—barely in the double digits, from what I can tell—Suri hooks him up to her Blank Space, providing him with Neutral Espir to bolster his spiritform, so his Core doesn’t crack when someone so much as sneezes.
Once again I shudder at the thought of how fragile I didn’t know I was when I first entered the Realm of Imagination by myself. If this place had been any less idyllic, I wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes.
We enter via the anchors left behind in Herman’s Haven, and Alec lets out a low whistle as he looks around. “Sweet digs!”
“Glad ya like it, dude,” Herman says as he comes sauntering over, fruity drink in claw, and wearing a different, somehow even louder Hawaiian shirt. “This little dude that friend of yours, Emma?”
“Yeah, he’s a rescue,” I say sweetly, ruffling his hair. “He’s mostly housebroken, though.”
“Hey!” Alec protests. “I haven’t peed my pants since I was twelve! That did not sound half as impressive as it was meant to... I was a late bloomer, okay?!”
Herman lets out a full-bellied laugh, his blue mandibles clacking. “You material people crack me up. Peeing... so weird, man! Anyway, I was about to go catch some waves, you dudes want to join me?”
Alec shoots me a hopeful look.
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “Suri, can your umbilical cord stretch that long?”
“What? Oh, yes. That shouldn’t be an issue,” Suri replies distractedly, her eyes on the deep-purple crystalline form of Farouq—once again in a twisted humanoid shape—who appears to be cooperating with one of Trisha’s drones to... build a sandcastle?
More of a palace, almost...
“All right, then,” I say, turning back to Alec. “Go have fun. Oh, and if you come across Kirri, let her know I’m here, and will come to see her in a bit.”
“Who?” Alec asks.
“Oh, she’s Emma’s daughter, dude,” Herman says. “And a sweet ride!”
Alec gapes back and forth between us.
“Oh my, you ride her?” Suri asks innocently. “How frequently, if I might ask?”
“Oh, not too often; she’s generally filled to capacity.”
Alec lets out a strangled noise.
“She’s a sentient ship,” I explain tersely, rubbing my temple against the oncoming headache. “And I sort of... adopted her. Anyway, you can’t miss her out there. Now go on boy, git!”
As Alec rushes off to grab surfboards with his new bro, I follow Suri over to where a masterpiece is being forged out of pristine white sand.
“No abstractions, Farouq?” Suri asks as she draws up behind him.
“It was her turn to pick something,” he replies calmly, as the sand in front of him continues to slowly flow up.
“Oh my, hi dears!” Trisha exclaims, turning away from the balcony railing she was sculpting, her eyes wobbling on their stalks in front of her aquamarine face. “I was so absorbed, I didn’t even notice you!”
“Could you let Goddess know we’re here, please?” I ask her. “We’ve got some pretty big news.”
Author's note:
Thanks for reading! ^^
And my apologies if the title got a certain song stuck in your head. ;)
