The wrestling complete, James and Illeana lie in the grass and look up at the blue sky above. They pant a little and watch small clouds drift pass. "Umm, what was the question?" Illeana asks, laughing. "Oh, right, Sam. He's doing great. I gave him a handful of preparations to use just in case the spirit didn't seem to be providing enough cover." James knows which ones she's talking about: she has a spell to physically camouflage someone against the terrain. It's largely redundant with his chameleon suit so he rarely needs one, but they're nice to have for Sam and occasions where James needs to be concealed but wearing different armor.
"Well we have half an hour,"
"SINs, visas, and customs declarations," the sour-looking man demands.
"There are several options for making a metahuman immune to age, some more invasive than others."
"Forever is a long time, James," she smiles, perhaps a bit sadly. "We've known each other for six months now, only five of which we can actually remember. It's been a great honeymoon, but let's not pretend that honeymoons last two years, let alone two hundred, or two thousand."
"It's hard to wrap your mind around, I know," Illeana says, practically robbing the thought straight from James' head. He looks up, surprised, wondering if she has some new mind-reading magicks.
"Your aura is swirling," she explains. "As well it should. This is one of the most important conversations of your life."
"We all die. It's not if but when, and don't let any elf or dragon tell you otherwise. My path is set, but yours is still open. You can't live forever, but you can live a long, long time. Just know that the true price isn't paid until the last day."
James lets out a low whistle, and exhales. Suddenly he leans forward and slaps his hands on the table, causing the plate of pastries to jump.
"Wait! Schwartzkopf was mentioned in the files that Cannon provided to us about the list of potential groups tracking us. The files said that it's possible that Schwartzkopf has alerted one of his magical groups - Benandanti XXV, I think they're called - to acquire the artifact and/or anyone who may have come into contact with it."
Illeana gives a wry smile and nods. James realizes that he's just catching up to what she's already thought of. "You're absolutely correct," she confirms.
"We're getting ahead of ourselves," Illeana says, trying to slow down a bit. "If we want to go this route, then we need to find some MIT&T graduates and figure out where they are teaching. I'm betting there are some in the greater Boston area. Then I need to apply, possibly with a significant donation to the institution to apologize for missing the admissions deadline. That gives us two months to find our way up north."
"In the meantime, we can do whatever we want. We can splash around in the swamps, researching and learning just in case the academic route doesn't pan out, or we can hit the road again." She raises her hands a bit to indicate the open world that they have in front of them.
"I might have to communicate via assensing, once I've convinced them not to kill me. Full disclosure, they're almost certainly going to try, but luckily I am exceedingly difficult to kill."
<<@James [Illeana] He's not magically active and he's not registering as a threat. But note the shotgun.>>
The dwarf continues to rock. "Strange weather," he finally says by way of greeting. His voice is deep and distant. He looks around at the mists slipping around and underneath his house.
"Mm, yes, strange," Illeana agrees.
James knows she's not much of a liar so he decides to speak up. "Nice to -"
"Wouldn't go any further," the dwarf cuts in. "Just wouldn't."
James presses him. "Why -"
"Folks go in, don't come out," the dwarf interrupts again. James realizes that the dwarf has never directly made eye contact. He keeps rocking and staring up and over James' head, not unlike the woman did at the seance.
"What's -"
"Witches," the dwarf says.
Perhaps the dwarf meant to be mysterious, or cautionary, but his dramatic declaration has the opposite effect on Illeana. She brightens visibly, with widened eyes and an intrigued, "Oo!"
She really has no poker face whatsoever, James thinks to himself, shaking his head slightly.
"Please?" Illeana says, glowing suspiciously despite the clouds and fog, as if they had parted and the sun had settled only on her. "We're friendly."
The shotgun is in the dwarf's hands in a blink, clearly a well-rehearsed maneuver.
"Nuh nuh nah, young lady," the dwarf scolds. "That'll be enough of that. That's what the witches do, or try."
<<@James [Illeana] Unbelievable! It just bounced right off his forehead! Imagine taking a shot with one of your Light Fires and having the bullet bounce off him like a BB off a troll. There's probably a reason he's survived here as long as he has.>>
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/Alligator_mississippiensis_2_babies.jpg/640px-Alligator_mississippiensis_2_babies.jpg) | (https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pbOOErC0tTA/hqdefault.jpg) |
"I feel like I grew up around animals," she says at one point, leaning up against James next to the fire. "No specific memories, mind you. It's just that animals feel... familiar. Cats, dogs, sure, easy. But I can also look at a horse or a cow and it doesn't seem weird or exotic."
"We'll take them with us," Illeana says. "Might make for a good-will gift. Or, if we end up taking them back, then we might find a research institution or a zoo that's interested. In the meantime, Chombo, Crusher, and Allison stay with us."
"No marshmallows, I'm afraid. Should we swap ghost stories then?"
"Just before sunrise. If you're not going back to sleep, I'll start breakfast and we can break camp soon."
She pauses to think. "I suppose I could try binding a spirit so that we could have two at once. I'm not very practiced at it though, so the spirit would have to be small so that it doesn't elude me. Maybe half the size of usual. What do you think?"
"I wonder if we could turn this behemoth skin into a flying carpet of sorts. Maybe I can levitate the skin itself, then we all sit on top of it Aladdin-style. Maybe you can lash together a frame - or maybe even reuse our bedding - to provide some structure?" She hums, pleased with the thought. "It works... in theory."
"We lost refrigeration when the cooler capsized," she says, wrinkling her nose at it. "Between that and the limited capacity of water filters, we should make it a goal to get out of here soon. Let's push forward through the morning, and if nothing comes of it we'll turn back midday."
"Here's how it is: I got a spare clip of HE tucked underneath the boat. Unless you want to say au revoir to your bourses, you'll keep your hands where I can see them."
She glances around the boat, eyeing the Desert Strike. Her eyes dart out into the swamp, quickly scanning the trees for James' backup.
"I got a biomonitor. If it sees me go down, the boat goes up. I got a good comm. Your hacker better one-shot me because if I see a MARK granted where I didn't ask for none, the boat goes up. I still got a full clip of HE right here, so I can get you from above or below."
"You can call me Holly Brighton for all I care!" she says with some venom before softening a bit. "Call me Holly," she says more calmly.
She looks incredulous at James' next question. "What, you don't know who we are or what this is?" she says, gesturing to the packages. "What are you doing, just kicking around a swamp looking for people to murder and things to steal?"
"In the meantime, I don't care you meet with or who we give a ride to as long as its rapidement. I ain't bandaging my eyes and I ain't paying attention to where you go. You put me on firm land and you're going to be in the rearview mirror as fast as I can huff all 1.4 meters of me."
"Been making friends, huh?"
"Chui here has been keeping me up-to-date," Illeana says. Her voice doesn't betray any worry over James' escapades. Perhaps she was never worried, or perhaps all is forgiven now that he has returned intact. "Looks like you found us a ride."
"She's inside, taking a siesta. She had a rough morning, you know." Illeana mimes unzipping her chest, mimicking what her sword had done to the woman in astral combat.
<<@James Well she's wound up tighter than the shocks on a Roadmaster. Should I be 'setting her mind at ease' so to speak?>>
"Can you repurpose these or do they need to go overboard ASAP?" she asks James.
"And then what do you want to do with all of this?" she asks, gesturing to the contraband. "I don't want to dump a potential fortune, but we don't exactly have the contacts to move this either. It's potential heat too, in case anyone comes looking. But if we manage to move it, we're that much closer to retirement."
<<@James, Illeana [Ohanzee] Taking the tentative offer and subtracting out the percentages, it comes to ¥60,000. You confident you can provide security for the hand-off? If they sense that you're undermanned, they'll make a play for both the product and the nuyen. That's just how these people work; it's business arithmetic, not personal.>>
"If drek goes sideways, dive in the water and Billy will drag us off. Remember, I have the buoyancy of a stone, so I can't keep pace with you in the water. We don't need this; this is all frosting."
<<@James [Illeana] I feel... fuzzy. I don't think it's background count. I think he's jamming the mana around me. He's not actively dispelling our spells, but it's like noise in the Matrix. Could just be defensive or it could be a test.>>
<<I'm going to risk a bluff, same as I did with the witch.>>
"No!" Illeana insists, keeping him pinned with what strength she can muster. "Billy the Kid... he's gone!" James doesn't understand. "The mana surge!" she explains.
"Let's talk about the fiscal outlook for the remainder of Q3," she says, spying an opportunity to have a financial conversation with James and have it double as part of their cover. "If you'll turn to the fifth slide of the ARO deck I just sent you..."
"Not peculiar: fortuitous. It can hardly be a surprise that I would be in Baltimore, the headquarters of Ares Arms. The coincidence is that you are here. And, perhaps, looking for us?" He holds his hands open to introduce the possibility.
"Your situation is very unusual, Agent Case," Rhodes says. "Typically we would not respond well to the disappearance of an agent, particularly one that represents such a large investment, but in this case there are mitigating factors."
"Such as?"
"You are not yourself. We know because in addition to being here in front of me, you are in Detroit, training."
"For what?"
"Your new life as a free spirit."
He gauges your reaction, or the lack thereof, and surmises that this is not entirely a surprise.
"You reported in," Rhodes continues. "And while the loss of an Instigator asset is significant, in this case it was outweighed by the gain."
"No, Agent Case, I cannot guarantee you control over your body during your lifetime. I cannot even guarantee that for myself. We serve a cause greater than ourselves and we do so however we can. But I will say that it has never been company policy to push people out of their bodies. I would think that the company has earned some trust and credit after saving both you and your brother after you were clinically deceased."
"Illeana will have the finest materials and resources available to her at all times," Rhodes continues. "But she will be an Ares employee with all the benefits and the responsibilities that entails. She will find a very warm home and welcoming colleagues to collaborate with, but it comes with oversight and accountability. The same is true for all of us."
Illeana gives a helpless shrug, as if to convey the difficulty of describing things. "Nothing so overt. More like a nudge. Imagine changing your aim a fraction of a degree. For a target right in front of you, you'll still hit it squarely. For a target a short distance away, you will wing it instead of hitting it center mass. But for a target a great distance away, you will miss it completely. Such are the machinations of great dragons, wherein by small changes they either deflect you away entirely or draw you into their orbit, all without your knowledge."
She squeezes his hand again, as if to assure him that she is still there with him, and that she doesn't enjoy the notion anymore than he does. She props her head on his shoulder and listens patiently to any questions he might have.
"She does not want to go 'home'," the Baron says. "If she did, she would be there instead of here."