“Did you kill Alexandria King?” The seemingly simple question, asked in a casual voice, sent shivers down my spine and my hand to my hip. Why was he asking that? I was certain that the fire could not be traced to anything but an accident, so why was he asking? Luckily, I was wearing a mask and armour, masking every reaction but the most obvious, the hand at my hip, close to my railgun.
Part of me wanted to equivocate, to spin a web of words that could mean anything and nothing at the same time but the buzzing in my mind grew stronger, as if there was something egging me on, pushing me to tell the truth. The very idea made the hairs on my hand stand up.
“No, I did not.” I said, refusing to elaborate, no matter what the feeling in my head was pushing me to.
For a moment, there was silence, only marred by a whisper, something I only picked up thanks to my sensory gear. It was the Shadowbroker, whispering, as if talking to himself, “Didn’t think so.” and after the silence stretched a little longer, the woman next to him spoke.
“Thank you. First, I apologize. My husband asked me to come and I agreed. You may call me Veritas if you want, it’s not my name but it is who I am.” Her voice was a smooth and rich alto, giving me a feeling of comfort and the impression that a voice like that could never lie. That feeling immediately sent me into high alert.
“I assume you feel the effects of my power, my curse. I cannot lie. Not to you, not to my husband, not to myself. And, depending on the strength I put into my aura, the same is true for people around me.”
I felt stunned. A power like that, calling it a curse was appropriate, if it was true. I had a feeling that it was, not that I would trust my feelings in that regard, if it was, I would not want to be in her shoes. My own power was something that made organisations want to acquire me, but hers? Her power took that sentiment up to eleven. And it still not answered the question why he had asked in the first place.
“I should explain myself. Dear, could you pull back your aura?” the Shadowbroker spoke up.
“No, I think not. You will just have to be truthful, serves you right after you made me ambush her.” Veritas rebutted. I doubt that the soft groan of the Shadowbroker was audible for anything but my sensor-gear.
“Tuesday morning, in the early hours, Alexandria King, the daughter of Martin King died in a house fire. Due to her connections, the League was asked to help investigate and they brought in Delphine. They wanted to know if it was personal, after all the girl was engaged to one of theirs, in addition to being the daughter of Mr. King.” I was glad that my face was covered by a mask and that Galatea had taken my jerk as an unconscious movement and not moved the armour in accordance, giving me an almost perfect poker-face. The only question was, if there was more to Veritas’ power than she had said. The phrase, knock me over with a feather, sprung to mind, that was what I was feeling, the implications of his words were far reaching, making me almost lose track of his words.
“I doubt you have heard of Delphine, she is one of the few cognitives the League has, to be precise, she is a postcognitive but as with all of them, she is not quite sane. Her visions are highly allegorical and subject to interpretation. She told about a ‘dark, titanic figure, bearing down on an ember and that ember bursting into flame’, which could literally mean a lot of things. Skylar heard ‘dark, titanic figure’ and thought of the one wearing black armour and using the name of a titan. It’s a long shot, but he asked me to help, something I am inclined to do, if there might be a personal level to an attack. I hate the idea of people trying to get at powered using their relatives. Makes me remember my daughter.” He spoke, his voice getting a rambling quality to it, until the end, the thing about his daughter. Without seeing his face it was hard to interpret, but his body-language screamed that he had not planned to say that. But just listening to him, there was a variety of interesting information in there. The biggest bombshell was that Clark was part of the League. With that knowledge, a few things that I had picked up on made more sense, but it was a train of thought for another time.
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Veritas reached over to the tense Shadowbroker, placing a hand on his shoulder in a comforting manner.
“It was not your fault, love. You know that.” The buzzing in my mind grew a little stronger and I saw the Shadowbroker’s stance relax a little. Curious about the buzz, I tried to tell Galatea a few lies, some simple lies, others misdirection and finally half-truths, in the privacy of my helmet. But I could not. I could not voice an obvious lie like ‘Water is dry’, not even thoughts that were a matter of perspective, like ‘The earth if flat’. Part of me wanted to grab Veritas and run a few tests, it was an intriguing power.
As I was focused on Veritas, Galatea brought something else to my attention. The shadows around the pair were not quite moving as they should. It was subtle, something nobody would normally pick up on, but calculating the few surrounding light-sources and spotting the differences was easy for an AI. So, the Shadowbroker was not only a facilitator of shady deals, he was also a powered with control over shadows? I doubted that his bodyguard was setting up an elaborate play to make it look like he did.
“Yes, I know, Thank you.” he said to her, before focusing back to me, forcing my attention back to him.
“When Skylar asked me about an investigation into you, I accepted. Not because I believe him, but because I know the League. It would not be the first time that they tried to entrap someone with a useful power and if I’m not wrong, your power would be very useful to them. They can’t act with impunity but they are happy to use an excuse.” His body-language was rather obvious as he talked, standing protectively close to Veritas, making me think that there was quite a bit of projection going on. I would not disabuse him of the notion, so for now, I chose to remain silent. That way, I may gain even more information and if I could come up with a way to verify her Power, I might even be able to trust what I heard.
“But you asked me here for business. What did you have in mind?” he asked.
The buzzing in my mind was gone now and I tried to tell Galatea lies again and this time, half-truths and misdirections worked but I could not voice a simple, direct lie. That allowed for a lot of room to equivocate, even if it was just mentally, using a complex concept to convince myself that what I said was true enough. What was the wonderful contradictio in adjecto, ‘Nothing is ever absolut’? With that in mind, I would most likely to say whatever I wanted to say, as long as I was careful, or rather mindful.
“Yes, I did. There is a company out of Cantonia, seeking to establish themselves in our country. I am their representative in New Brunsburg and I thought it would be a good idea to make contact with someone in the local scene.”
“Oh? Can you tell me what that company is selling?”
“Not everything, no. There is a branch dedicated to medical technology, especially emergency aid and there is a branch dedicated to consumer-grade self-defense equipment. Those are the branches that will be the most relevant.”
“I will simply ramble a bit, please excuse me. I hope you don’t take offense.
There is a market for both, but I hope that the company you represent doesn’t make the mistake of using equipment far beyond the current standard to break the market. There would be repercussions. It has been tried, by powered with the power to create technology beyond our current understanding, without understanding it themselves. Some of it was reverse engineered but not everything. Selling something like that would create backlash, massively so. There are a lot of forces dedicated to keep the status quo.”
His ramblings made sense and I agreed with him. There was a reason why I had never tried to use my fusion-generator as a bargaining chip after all. No, what I had planned would have to be a slow process, a gradual change instead of a sudden revolution. Once TitanTech was established, I could slowly increase my power. For now, there would only be a small operation, focused on inconspicuous items.