--=-Chapter 29: When The Trouble Starts--=-

As it turned out, Sori had told me to study the buttons for a reason. He'd imbued each button with an example glamour.

"Don't think of it as emotional manipulation. Is it emotional manipulation to smile politely? To give a stranger a nod of your head in passing? Sure, it's a bit more invasive than that since you affect people's actual memory, but it's only temporary. It's also not foolproof. Anytime you play with a person's emotions, there's always an element of unpredictability."

One button had a glamour similar to the one Sori used on me. "While you use this glamour, your target will associate you with friendliness and familiarity. There's an implication of inequality with superiority for the target. People are often more likely to accept an emotion if it feeds their ego. People might ask you, 'Who's a good boy?' with this glamour, and the answer is always you. So get used to that."

Another button might as well be labeled terror. "This is a flashbang of emotional glamour. It won't last long, at least not unless you reinforce it was violence or something else that causes genuine fear. It would have been perfect to use on Crowseph rather than trapping yourself in the force-field bubble."

That you gave me.

"Only because you're crap at illusions. Anyway, the third button is sort of between the first two. Like the friendship glamour, this one can be sustained so long as you don't give them a reason to ignore how they feel. Like the flashbang, this glamour relies on negative feelings. You can pretty much use fear and anger interchangeably; people react to them very similarly. If that last button was 'terror,' this glamour is intimidation."

I thought I needed to use empathy to customize the glamours.

"Obviously, these are just templates. They'll feel intrusive and inappropriate if you don't customize them, like a giggle at a funeral or the inexplicable impulse to drive into oncoming traffic."

In all, we only spent a handful of minutes going over the buttons and the glamour. I could only use a single glamour at a time and only on one person at a time. This meant it would only be so effective in a group like Nia's.

Still, Sori insisted I practice on him at least once, just to be sure I'd listened. I unfocused my eyes as I concentrated on the familiarity I wanted Sori to feel toward me.

"Understand what your target feels and why," Sori said.

Sori had introduced himself to me as a god. Even if he'd decided he wasn't a god, he still had some of that superiority I could play off of. He wasn't worried about me; if anything, he felt comfortably familiar. That was probably his own glamour. Still, apparently, one of the strengths of the glamour was that it was difficult to ignore, even knowing it wasn't real.

Last time, I'd stopped here and sent that sensation of friendship back to Sori. He'd said it was like introducing yourself to someone by giving them their own name. Sori wanted me to see him in a friendly light, but that didn't mean that was how he saw me.

"What do you want your target to feel? What about you triggers that response?" Sori guided.

I used the template that gave the impression that I was a friendly family pet. It was demeaning, but I had the ears and tail for it anyway. It was a mask—and not the most degrading one I'd ever worn.

I wagged my tail slightly and focused on the hopeful puppy-dog appeal dogs wear when asking to be fed table scraps. I remembered times I'd been goofy or playful and tried to fill my demeanor with the same energy. I imagined how Sori might play with a real dog. Visualization wasn't part of the illusion like it was for storing thoughts on memory crystals. However, it was still helpful for finding the right emotions to instill into my glamour. The goal was to genuinely feel what I was trying to impress on the target.

Finally came the tricky part. I had to transmit the glamour to Sori's mind. I'd managed it in the ether, but I still wasn't sure how. Hands supposedly used sound to shape visual illusions in his target's mind. Sori said he used 'ghost powers' but was vague about what that meant, and I was pretty sure he was wrong or lying anyway. Finally, he told me, "Have you ever had a conversation with someone across a crowded room using only your eyes and body language? Try doing that."

Glamour ready, I looked up at Sori, perched on the break-room refrigerator. I could tell when I had his attention. Unsure what to do next, I settled on using body language. I'd gotten mixed success using my doggy grin already, so I decided to try using it as the mechanism for the illusion.

I wasn't really expecting it to work, but after a moment, a tendril of blue light shot out from my forehead, making my brow tickle. The light tendril darted across the space between me and Sori in a breath, leaving me stunned.

It looked just like the light whips that had killed Nia, Jon, and me back at the start of all this.

What the shit was that? I asked Sori when he flew over to land on my shoulder.

"That was what we call a success! Good job, pup. Now, don't let the glamour go; it's fading."

I could feel what he meant. The blue tendril had only been visible briefly, but I could still feel the connection with Sori. On his end, he should feel like I was a friendly pet. If I wanted it to last, I had to hold that association in my mind. I kept it in place for a few seconds to be sure I could, then I let it fade.

No, for real. What was that light? That didn't happen in the ether.

"Of course not. That dump was basically your dream; we were already connected."

But your illusions didn't do that either.

"Well, duh, I use the ghost powers god gave me. Ghosts are invisible."

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I've seen tendrils like that before. They killed me and my friends.

"Um, Sam. Illusions can't kill you. That's why they're called illusions and not practical effects."

We went through each illusion, but my unease didn't fade. Each time I triggered the glamour, a blue whip of light snaked between Sori and me. He claimed I was the only one who could see it, but that didn't make me feel better. How were these illusions related to those squiggles of light from the day this all started? I'd stopped trying to figure out what the apocalypse was because I had more immediate concerns. Now, those questions were returning. What had ended the world, and why was I getting special treatment? What was Sori?

We left the break room and headed back toward the lobby where we'd left Nia's group. Sori warned me that I'd only be able to hold a glamour on one person at a time, but I wasn't sure anymore that I wanted to use one at all. Sori insisted that it wasn't any different than the emotional manipulation people regularly use on each other. Still, despite knowing I had good reasons not to trust him, I found myself doing so anyway.

People would be able to reason past my glamour. Their common sense would tell them I wasn't a family pet, but their heart would tell them I was. In the same way, I knew Sori was part of the apocalypse and probably not someone to trust. He just seemed so familiar, so friendly. People ignore good sense to follow their hearts all the time. I couldn't decide if that made emotional glamour more or less acceptable. Then again, while Sori was certainly manipulating my emotions, he'd only ever been helpful. In the end, I trusted him because I wanted to, for better or worse.

As a compromise, I decided I wouldn't use glamour or Nia. I was having trouble seeing past the emotional glamour. Children aren't exactly known for making rational choices when their emotions get involved, which made it feel more like mind control. That left Anderson and Denis as possible targets.

Anderson seemed to already view me positively; Denis, on the other hand, was clearly nervous about my appearance. He was already jumping to conclusions about me based on misplaced emotions; I'd only be trying to lay the groundwork for a positive interaction for us both. It'd be a lot easier to convince myself that I wasn't doing anything wrong if the memory of light whips and sizzling flesh didn't keep playing on repeat in my head.

Sori's crow was fine. Denis would be fine. It wasn't mind control; it was just a little social engineering.

Opening the door, I saw the group still sitting around. Only Maebe sat unaffected by my entrance, her body and aura still empty to my senses. That had been done to her by someone using my shadow. Could I use that to figure out who had it?

I turned and closed the door, running a thumb across the smiley face I'd scratched in the door earlier. Taking a breath, I turned and walked toward the group, Sori-Crow perched on my shoulder.

Two bodies lay on the floor in the center of the room. Nia was draped across one, crying. Anderson and Denis sat in chairs close by, their eyes also red. All three looked over as I walked in, and I saw rage building on Denis's face as his eyes moved between me and the crow on my shoulder.

I'd come in prepared to use a glamour on him. Seeing his growing anger, I had to change it. He'd been scared of me before, and I expected that to still be his primary emotion toward me. I wasn't sure what an incongruous emotional glamour would feel like. Sori claimed it was similar to an intrusive thought, easily ignored as ridiculous.

Instead of being afraid, Denis was furious. He saw Sori sitting on my shoulder and believed I was working with the crows. I needed him to feel like I was friendly. Being seen as a pet wasn't dignified, but they already wondered if I was Nia's dog, Oberon, come back from the dead.

I wasn't just a pet; I was here to help, to comfort. I might mess up, but I didn't mean any harm. I let my tail droop, and my ears go limp. I looked at Denis from the corner of my eye like a dog expecting to be yelled at. I felt the emotion build up in me, and then, like a darting fish, a streamer of blue light connected Denis and me.

The anger drained out of him in a deep sigh. "Stupid dog," he said in weak disappointment, burying his face in his hands and dismissing me. His already thin aura took on a distinct blue halo around his head. Sori insisted it was nothing more than any charismatic person could do with a few words, but it made me uneasy.

Tell them I'm sorry I couldn't save Alice and Jessica.

Sori introduced himself. "I am Sori," he said. "And-"

"Sorry! My sister is dead!" Nia yelled, glaring at the bird on my shoulder. Her eyes flicked to me, looking confused and hurt.

I winced. This isn't going to be easy.

"I know, Nia. Oberon tried. I'm barely real, and I tried. I'm Sorry we were too late," Sori said, his voice almost startlingly gentle compared to the brash oddball I'd gotten used to.

"What is happening?" Anderson asked, not looking at the talking bird on my monstrous shoulder. "The last couple of hours have been more than I can believe. How can any of this be real?"

"My name is Sori. Oberon basically stole this bird so I could explain the best that I can. You need to understand that it's been more than hours. The day has looped more than seventy times."

Goddammit, Sori, tell them my real name.

Is that really what's important right now? Sori's voice asked in my head.

Wait, you can talk in my head?

Oh my God, I just realized we weren't speaking out loud. Weird. Anyway, none of them know Sam.

They don't, but Jon does, and he doesn't even know I'm alive.

Baby steps.

It was probably a mistake to put as much trust in Sori as I was, but, as was more and more often the case, my options were limited.

"Why did my sister have to die? Why didn't Oberon save her? I thought he was on our side. Why did he join you?" Nia was angry, and I could understand why.

I'd underestimated how this group would respond to a talking crow. They didn't even seem surprised. Like me, they'd probably seen the coordination and strange behavior of the crows and, after talking, had realized something odd was afoot. Maybe using the bird as my voice wasn't the best idea, but he was my only choice.

"I don't know," Sori said. "But don't be sad. The day will loop, and she'll be back. That's when the trouble starts."

--=-

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