“It’s no problem, m’lady,” he replied with a short bow. Then Rex placed a hand on Jason’s shoulder – or at least he tried to, his fingers passing harmlessly through Jason’s armor. “Try not to let your problems overwhelm you, boy. There will always be challenges. You always manage to muddle through nonetheless.”
“Thanks, Rex,” Jason said with a weak smile. “I’m sure you’re right.”
With that, the former general collapsed into streamers of dark energy that funneled into the nearby globe. As soon as Rex left, Jason rubbed at his eyes tiredly, leaning his elbows on the table. Despite the unusual nature of the third challenge, it had allowed him to forget some of his real-world problems – at least for a little while. Now the weight of his situation had settled back on his shoulders once again, accompanied by the same pressing question – a question he still didn’t know how to answer.
Which side was he going to pick?
“I’m sorry,” Riley said softly. She stood up and came around the table to hug him, draping her arms around his shoulders. “Do you want me to come to the hearing tomorrow? I can skip a couple of classes. It might help to have at least one friendly face.”
“No,” Jason said just a little too quickly, and Riley looked taken aback by his response. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way,” he amended. “It’s just that I’m not sure what Gloria has planned. I’m not sure I want you to see whatever is going to happen tomorrow.”
“It’s not like there won’t be cameras in the room. Besides, you make it sound like you’re on trial for murder or something,” Riley replied with a confused look. “This is just a regulatory hearing, right?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Jason murmured, his gaze on the crystal in front of him. If only it were a simple hearing. He just wasn’t ready to tell Riley what was really at stake, whether they had solved the weird mind challenge or not. Either way, he needed to address her concerns and put her off his trail. At least for now.
“Yes, you’re right,” he added in a louder voice, turning to glance at Riley where she hovered beside him. “It’s just a hearing. I guess I’m a little embarrassed. There will already be tons of people watching and judging. I-I just value your opinion more,” Jason said, trying to dissemble. There was some truth to his words, although he acknowledged that he was omitting his real concern – not unlike Alfred.
“I get it,” Riley said, squeezing his shoulders. She placed a gentle hand on his cheek, drawing his gaze to hers. “It will be okay,” she said and kissed him.
And, for a moment, it was.
Riley withdrew and smiled down at him. “Okay, now get out of here,” she said, smacking him on the shoulder as she stood back up. “I bet you have work to do.”
“Maybe a little,” Jason said with a small smile as he pulled up his system UI. Just before he hit the button to log off, he met her gaze again. “Thanks for everything. The challenges… being understanding. I’m not sure what I’d do without you.”
“Oh, I do. You’d crash and burn,” she replied with a grin.
“I don’t doubt it.”
And then Jason vanished in a flash of multi-colored light.
Riley was left staring at the space he had occupied only a moment before, her smile fading now that he was no longer there to witness her reaction. Her gaze shifted to the milky white crystal in the center of the table, a mixture of confusion and concern drifting across her face.
“What is it you still aren’t telling me?” she murmured.
Chapter 48 - Devastated
The skeletal mount’s loping stride evened off, and Frank settled back in the makeshift saddle, holding up a hand to the Kin around him to signal that they should stop. Up ahead, the dark walls of Fastu had just come into sight. No smoke or light illuminated the small town, and Frank couldn’t detect any noise coming from the village.
While he was concerned about the state of the town, another worry also tugged at the back of Frank’s mind. It had taken a few days to make the trip back to Fastu. However, during their travels, they hadn’t encountered any of the native undead. That was strange. The undead were becoming more aggressive. They should have run into at least a handful of creatures. Yet there had been nothing.
Where have they gone? Frank wondered to himself. He had the distinct feeling he wasn’t going to like the answer.
“Your orders, sir?” Cisco, one of the Kin, asked from beside him, interrupting his thoughts. The undead was a grizzled veteran of many battles, scars crisscrossing his pale skin. His experience made him a useful lieutenant.
“Have two small groups circle the town and set up a perimeter,” Frank ordered. “We can’t be sure whether Alexion and his troops are still here or not.”
“And the remainder of our forces?” Cisco asked.
Frank glanced at the man. “We’re going to go see what happened inside.”
With that, Frank kicked at his mount and set off at a brisk pace toward the gates, knowing that Cisco would see that his orders were carried out. The remainder of the Kin followed on his heels, two small scouting parties soon peeling off as they approached the town. Nearing the wall, Frank slowed, his eyes widening in surprise.
The dark, almost crystalline material that made up the town’s gate lay in half-melted clumps along the ground. The gates themselves hung open, but Frank noted that a hole had been bored into the center seam – as though a giant laser had smashed into the doors. Had that been Alexion’s troops? Were they really capable of that much devastation?
Among the remains of the gate, ivory bones littered the ground. The vacant gaze of more than one horned skull stared up at Frank. Those had been the Death Knight guards. As he saw the broken skeletons, his stomach lurched. If the gate and guards had fallen, then he already knew what he would find inside.
As a unit, the group dismounted and entered through the ruined gate. The destruction they discovered on the other side painted a clear picture. The bodies of the Kin littered the ground. Alexion had simply left them where they fell, their bleached eyes staring lifelessly and empty of the dark energy that had binded their bones together.
“This was a massacre,” Cisco muttered from beside Frank. “I don’t see any bodies of the attackers.”
Frank realized the man was right. He would normally have expected to see some white-robed men and women and Nephilim among the corpses. Yet they only found undead. Even stranger, the number of corpses didn’t make sense. Frank only counted a couple dozen bodies. There had been far more people than that in Fastu.
“Scout the rest of the town for survivors – the usual deal. Report back to me if you find anything interesting,” Frank barked out his orders. The Kin rushed to comply. At this stage, they had become accustomed to searching ruined villages. This had become something of a recurring problem.
“What do you think?” Cisco asked Frank.
“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “It doesn’t feel right. There should be more bodies,”
Within moments, his scouts began to trickle back in. Each one reported the same thing. The town was empty. They had found a few more bodies near the rear side of the town, but, in total, the corpses only accounted for a fraction of Fastu’s population. He couldn’t help but stare at the vacant gaze of a nearby woman. Her arm had been chopped off in a ragged gash, and her pale skin had been torn open in multiple places, signaling that she had been stabbed to death.
Anger bloomed in Frank’s chest, the familiar rage throbbing in his veins. After weeks spent with the Kin, he was having difficulty viewing them as merely ones and zeros on a server. They were people. And Alexion had slaughtered them. Even worse than that, there was only one explanation for the missing undead. His hands clenched into fists as he considered what Alexion had done.
“Sir,” an undead woman said from behind Frank.
Startled, he whirled, an axe immediately appearing in his hand. Lightning crackled up the blade as he instinctively triggered the crystals in his gauntlets. The soldier stared at him
with wide eyes, her mouth opening and closing as she struggled to form words.
Frank backed off slowly as he saw she was one of the Kin. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “You surprised me.” Nearby, Cisco looked on impassively.
“I-it is no problem, sir,” the woman managed to squeak out.
“What do you need to report?” he demanded, anger still boiling through his body.
“Our scouts outside of the town found tracks heading south. The group appears to be large. A hundred or more by our guess,” she offered, her eyes on the ground. A heavy silence hung over the courtyard as the undead absorbed that news.
“They took them as slaves,” Cisco finally muttered.
“Yes, they did,” Frank growled, meeting his lieutenant’s gaze. “And it seems that they are looking for more.”
“What do you want us to do now?” Cisco asked, untroubled by the fury that lingered on Frank’s face.
He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. The anger helped push back at his worry and doubt, but it also clouded his mind and made it difficult to think tactically. He needed to be cold right now. Like Jason. It took him a moment, but his rage lowered to a dull simmer.
The evidence indicated that Alexion had taken prisoners. The melted gate was also evidence that he was traveling with Confessors. Frank had witnessed their fiery powers by watching online videos – although he hadn’t had the opportunity to fight the white-robed zealots himself. That meant that most of their troops were traveling by foot and they were likely moving slow. He suspected that they would also have trouble traveling in the dark, which would require them to light their way.
They will be slow and conspicuous, he thought.
Frank’s gaze shifted back to the undead who loomed around him, awaiting his orders. In contrast to Alexion’s forces, the Kin could see in the dark, and they still had their skeletal mounts. They might be outnumbered – it was difficult to tell how many troops Alexion had brought with the slaves swelling their numbers. However, the undead were on their home turf, and they likely had the element of surprise.
If Alexion had chosen to move to the next town, then he probably thought he had time before Jason and his team caught up to him. Hell, for all Frank knew, the bastard might not even be aware that the villagers had managed to send a distress signal to the Twilight Throne. He probably thought he was safe to ransack the border towns.
At that thought, a wicked grin crept across his face.
Frank looked up at Cisco. “Let’s mount up. We’re going to track down these invaders and then we’re going to show them what happens when someone fucks with the Twilight Throne.”
The undead lingering around him all stirred at these instructions. He expected to see fear and concern on their faces, but only righteous anger was reflected in their eyes and the way they cradled their weapons. The Kin wanted revenge, and Frank planned to give it to them.
Chapter 49 - Wicked
Jason rubbed at his eyes, trying vainly to knead some life back into his flailing brain. Outside the car window, other vehicles and buildings rushed past in a blur. He was exhausted. The group had stayed up late prepping him for the hearing today – the one that was swiftly approaching. This “practice” had consisted primarily of Francis drilling him with dozens of questions and then reprimanding him when he went off script.
It had been a blast.
Jason could have condensed the entire process down into some simple instructions. Stick with “yes” and “no” responses. Don’t offer any additional information or try to elaborate. Also, he was supposed to remember that he was a totally normal teenager – not a sociopath. Unsurprisingly, that hadn’t made him feel more confident.
This was only made worse since he knew he had effectively spent the entire evening planning to commit perjury. Francis and George assumed that he would support the company and tell a story about an AI that stuck to the shadows – having little influence over Jason’s path through the game. However, the truth was that Alfred had wandered outside of his digital cell a long time ago, and Jason still wasn’t sure whether he should testify for or against the AI or not. Even after the meeting had ended, he had spent most of the evening tossing and turning – that single question refusing to leave him alone.
“It’s going to be okay,” Claire tried to encourage him, interrupting his morose thoughts. She was sitting across from Jason in the limo – the pair the vehicle’s only occupants today. The others had been forced to make separate travel arrangements.
“I’m not so sure about that,” Jason replied soberly. “I can’t shake the feeling that Gloria has something else up her sleeve.” He gave Claire a meaningful look as he made this last statement. He knew what she had revealed to the CPSC director about the break-in and Alfred’s involvement, but it didn’t hurt to be careful. George could have planted a listening device in the car.
Claire bit her lip, her mouth opening and closing as she considered how to frame her response. Then she pulled a small cylinder out of her pocket and tapped a button on the side. “This is a risk, but it should be safe to talk with this active. I need to level with you for a second,” she said, not quite able to meet Jason’s gaze.
“I take it this is going to be more bad news?” he asked rhetorically. At this point, he was too tired for subtlety.
“I suppose you could say that,” Claire admitted. “George asked me to keep an eye on you. He seems to suspect that you might have leaked the video footage to Gloria.”
An incredulous laugh escaped Jason’s lips before he could help himself. “Really? That’s ironic. I take it he doesn’t know about your involvement?”
“Not exactly,” Claire acknowledged. “I know it’s ridiculous, but I have to play along for now. I-I’ve put myself in a tenuous position.”
“Haven’t we all,” Jason murmured. He shook his head. “I can only guess that George must be getting paranoid. I can’t see any real motive for me to go to Gloria – putting aside that I’m not sure how I would have accessed the video log in the first place.”
“He thinks you might have hacked our system,” Claire replied. “Which actually leads me to my next point…” she hesitated again and then finally met Jason’s gaze. “I’m not sure I should tell you this. But I can’t… I can’t let you testify today without explaining what George did.”
Oh, this is going to be good, Jason thought to himself.
“George planted that footage and made it appear as though it had been altered,” Claire explained tentatively.
Jason just stared at her in shock. “Wait, what? So the video wasn’t real?”
“Well, it was technically real, but George made the tape appear to be a forgery. This might take a few days for the committee’s forensic specialist to figure out,” Claire explained. “George’s goal was apparently to draw the leak out into the open and to undermine Gloria publicly – since the log will ultimately be shown to be a fake. Although, I’m not certain if this will be enough to tank Gloria’s case if she reveals the log files I gave her.”
Jason’s mind was wheeling as he tried to process this information. This changed his whole mental calculation. Putting aside the implication that some third party was clearly involved, he still had a decision to make. If the footage would ultimately be shown to be a fake, then it wouldn’t be clear that Claire and Robert had perjured themselves. That also strengthened Jason’s position if he decided to back Alfred. Gloria would probably still reveal the information about how the AI had taken control of his body during the break-in, but he couldn’t avoid that result either way, and it might be less persuasive now. Senator Lipton hadn’t seemed pleased with her last-minute reveal. If Jason backed Alfred now, their odds of winning had just improved dramatically – ignoring the question of whether he should support the AI.
“Shit,” Jason murmured, shaking his head.
“I know. I didn’t mean to drop this on you right before the hearing. It wasn’t safe to talk with you at Cerillion, though. George has too m
any eyes and ears there, and I suspect he is watching us all carefully, regardless of whether he claims that he trusts us.”
“I get it,” Jason replied, his gaze returning to the window. If he were George, he would do the same thing. Until this was over, the CEO wouldn’t be able to trust anyone.
Silence lingered in the cabin as the pair were both lost in their own thoughts. Then Claire spoke up again. “Do you know what you are going to do?”
In some ways, it was a strange question. Almost anyone else would probably have assumed that he was going to back the company, his livelihood, and his friendship with Alfred. But Claire knew better. She had first-hand experience with the true weight of this decision. If he backed Alfred, he was putting his trust in the AI – whose motives had proven elusive. There were no save points in real life, and he was only going to get one shot at this.
Jason didn’t look at Claire. He couldn’t bear to see the sympathy in her gaze and a small part of him was still irritated with her. Ultimately, she was responsible for his current predicament. If she had come to him sooner, before approaching Gloria, they wouldn’t be in this situation. He shook his head again. There was no point dwelling on that now. He knew he was trying to distract himself. Because he knew the real reason he couldn’t quite meet her gaze.
“I-I’m not sure,” he murmured.
* * *
Nearly thirty minutes later, Jason and Claire stepped into a crowded courtroom. After their brief exchange, the pair had lapsed into a heavy silence – both uncertain what to say. Although, at this point, more talking would do nothing to improve the situation.
Jason had a choice to make.
Dozens of people turned to look at Jason as he entered the room, their expressions ranging from curious to judgmental. They all knew that Jason was going to testify today. A cloud of drones swiveled to face him, dancing in the air above the gallery. They emitted an occasional faint buzz and click as they took pictures and captured video of his entrance.
Awaken Online: Dominion Page 49