I look between Diane and the unnamed hulk. One of them has to be more suited to being the hostage. Whoever’s the higher risk of killing their friend to make sure I die has to be the one I hold my knife over, but honestly, I don’t know what the right answer is.
From our first encounter I would’ve said it’s Diane. She seemed much more skittish than Razi, but the hand around my arm says otherwise. It’s grabbing insanely hard, shoves me around without a single care for my safety, and her nails dig into my skin every now and again. Not all the time, which could be chalked up to nerves–just short enough to make sure it hurts without leaving permanent marks.
My gut tells me that she’d slash through the big guy if it meant she could spill my blood. But that’s only half the decision. And I need to make sure I’m not making the choice with incomplete information.
“So, hey, can you guys ease up a little on the pressure?” I ask with as much friendliness as I can put in my voice. “I don’t know what I did wrong here, but if you think I’m lying to you, just wait a few minutes for–”
Magic flows into Diane’s hand. I grit my teeth and prepare myself as her fingers crush down on my muscles, squeezing so hard that it’s extremely hard to keep my voice from spilling out. In contrast, the big guy’s grip loosens so much that he’s barely even touching my skin. And his face falls when he sees my hand starting to lose colour.
He leans behind me and cups his free hand to his mouth. “Diane. You’re squeezing really hard.”
His voice is like a raging waterfall; full of power and vigor as it comes out, but disperses into a thin mist when it finishes crashing down. Low self confidence and some kind of drilled-in inferiority immediately come to mind as the cause, but it could all be an act. Just like Diane’s hardness could all be an act.
Or the farce she put on back in the other world could’ve been the act, and this is the real Diane.
“Silence.” She hisses, and her nails bite deep into my skin. “Call entrusted this to us. Until he says this woman is safe to be free, she is mine.”
“He assigned both of us to this.” The man insists with shaky speech. “What’ll he think if he comes back and she has a broken arm? What if we’re actually working together here, and your hastiness makes him look bad?”
Diane sneers at the man, but it looks like his words hit home. The magic slowly leaves her hand, but her grip doesn’t loosen.
“Call comes first.” She begrudgingly agrees. “Whatever he needs for this to succeed, we have to do. Otherwise we don’t have a chance at moving up.”
The man nods in agreement, but he doesn’t have the same sparkle in his eye that Diane does. Either she’s enamored with Call, the idea of Preservation speakers in general, or she just really wants to move up in the Preservation. That… does give me an angle to work with. One I don’t want to use, since it’d put unnecessary strain on Ursula, but it might be the best option.
I keep my mouth shut until we’re back in the room with the massive hole in the middle. Diane yanks my arm to force us towards the back wall, and the big guy just lets her do it. Was his show of caring how I’m treated a one-time thing to get Diane to back off? Is that all his bout of courage amounted to?
A humourless smile creeps up the sides of my mouth. Whatever hangups I had about taking one of these dipshits hostage a minute ago are all gone now. Just have to make sure I’ve got a concrete plan in place for when I put a knife to Diane’s throat.
She shoves me against a salt growth on the wall. Thorns brush against my shirt and barely poke my back, and I grit my teeth to stifle the pain that’s about to come. Except… it doesn’t. The thorns retract along with my body weight. I’ll have to remember to thank Fleur for still looking out for me.
“Get the rope.” Diane orders the big guy as she rips his hand off my arm. To replace it with her other iron hand. “Tie her at the joints, and if you feel any mana coming off of her, do whatever it takes to break her concentration.”
He shoots me a pathetic glance, then hunches his shoulders and shrugs off his backpack. Diane isn’t that powerful. That’s the feeling I had when I first met her and Razi; fresh-ish recruits still loitering around the safest town in the world because they don’t have the confidence to set off for more dangerous–and rewarding–ventures.
Now it makes sense why. The Preservation probably got them after their first return to Earth, saw that they weren’t really threats, and brought them into the fold. Maybe filled their heads with delusions of grandeur, while at the same time assigning them to watch the tutorial town for anyone dangerous who might come through.
I tilt my head back just a little–not enough for Diane to notice, but enough to get the pressure off my neck. All this makes me wonder if they reported me to the Preservation the moment they returned. Were they surprised to find out that I was already wanted? That I’d been taken in by the Resort’s equivalent of the speakers?
…Did it piss them off?
“I don’t know why you’re being so mean to me.” I reiterate directly to Diane’s face, which is inches from my own. “It’s not like I’m working for HuSt or the Resort.”
Both of Diane’s hands tighten around my arms. She growls deep in her throat, and if she could see my face through the mask, she would definitely blow up on me. Because I hit the mark one-hundred percent.
“If you talk again, I’m gagging you.” She spits.
The big guy finally pulls out a length of rope that shimmers with magic. It only appears the second he takes it out of his backpack, so it’s either some kind of spatial pocket or it has cloaking built in. He timidly hands it to Diane without getting any closer, and she clicks her teeth together as she lets go of one of my arms to grab it.
Now?
…No. I can get more info out of these two before I take any risks. I hold both my arms out in front of me for Diane to tie up, all the while focusing on the magic of the rope that bites into my skin like poison ivy. A laugh almost bubbles out of me when I recognize the sensation as an infinitely weaker version of Horrendous Purification.
But I manage to hold out, and Diane ties me up with the skills of an absolute amateur. I test the loops around my wrists just by flexing, and they almost come undone on their own. If she’s going to put her trust in a magic rope to contain convicts, then she should really learn how to tie knots.
“Happy?” I ask flatly as she puts the finishing touches around my ankles. “I can’t run, can’t use mana, and I wasn’t going to do either of those things in the first place. And why’re you doing everything on your own, anyway?”
I nod at the big guy, who flinches away.
“Isn’t jumbo supposed to help you?”
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Diane snaps around to glare at him. He shies away even further. Looks like it’s going to be even easier than I thought to drive a wedge between these two.
“He isn’t worth the ground he walks on.” Diane sneers at jumbo, then takes a threatening step towards him. The guy flinches even harder. “He doesn’t have a good class, he isn’t powerful, and he’s a coward. The only reason he’s here right now is because he’s someone important’s precious little baby.”
She nearly spits those last three words. Jumbo doesn’t say anything in return; he just retreats further into whatever safe space he’s made in his mind. Man, I couldn’t make a better scenario for myself if I tried.
“What’s his name?”
“Brandon Highroller. Not that that’s his real name; his dad changed his last name when he got promoted to the board. Isn’t it a perfect fit for someone who’s never gambled for anything a day in his life?” Diane laughs cruelly and crosses her arms. “I’m his assigned goddamn babysitter. For life. The dipshit took a good look at me a few weeks ago, thought he liked how my face was nice and asian, and tried to take me.”
She laughs again, but this time, I can hear the bitterness in it. And I can see the distant look in her eyes. “His fucking father ordered me to be his concubine. I… I had friends. I had a life. Now I’m stuck obeying some dipshit who can’t even overpower me, and the only goddamn way I can get back to my life is by getting a speaker’s position.”
I… uh… Jesus Christ.
“Now I’m… I’m…” Diane wipes her eyes and laughs for a third time. It shakes and cracks all the way through. “I’m telling all this to a complete stranger, because you’re the only goddamn person that’s not connected to the board. Razi got punished because he tried to help me, Call almost got demoted when he stuck his neck out, and… and…”
The knots on my hands almost fall away. So easily. Too easily. Diane turns to me, her eyes absolutely pleading for help. Her grip from before takes on a different meaning. Call sending me, her, and Brandon here takes on a different meaning.
Razi’s figure bursts into the edge of my awareness bubble before his voice reaches us. The rest of the pieces fall into place. But they don’t fit into the puzzle I thought I was making.
“Diane!” He cries, and a horde of elementals filters in behind him. “I’m here!”
She wipes her tears and nods confidently. A swift flick of her wrist sends the ropes around me thumping to the ground, and she confidently places herself between me and Brandon. As if… she’ll be protecting me from the person she admitted was weak as hell. Something’s up.
“You… y-you…” Brandon stutters as he backpedals and digs through his pack. “When we get back, I’m making daddy take your thoughts away!”
He pulls something free from his backpack. Magic violently erupts from whatever it is, and when it clears, Brandon isn’t there any more. Instead, a nine-foot tall robot that looks strikingly similar to the fakes I fought in the glass tunnels glares down at Diane. She swallows hard and takes a step back, then turns to offer me a shaky smile.
“Sorry I took my tension out on you. It… wasn’t right. But you just… you remind me of someone I met right before everything went wrong.”
That sends a shiver down my spine. Before I can say anything, the robot’s body blinks with a sickly green–the same that dripped from the wormhole made by the Preservation–and shudders to life. The difference between this one and the ones in the tunnel is instant, huge, and frustrating. I’m not sure if it’s the Pearl in me, but the idea of the Preservation using Shellraiser tech makes me want to end them.
Pearl clenches her little fists. Tiny rivulets of prismatic liquid drop down her face, and I realize why I haven’t seen her doing anything; she’s been holding back. Anger at the Preservation mistreating me, disgust and sadness at Diane’s plight, and now raw, unbridled hatred at the machine about to kill Diane. And Razi right after.
Or, I can make movements right now.
I put a steady hand on Diane’s shoulder. She flinches so hard it makes me wince, and I remind myself to be a little more gentle with her in the future. Even if she wasn’t soft with me.
“Take these.” I say calmly and herd her out of the way, slipping two coins with relocation ready to go into her hand. She stares down at them in confusion. “Accept the spell in one of them and give the other to Razi.”
“But you–” She starts, but finishes with a yelp as the robot brings down two arms with sickly blades at the end. Both aimed only at her. “AHHH!”
“Diane!” Razi screams in despair.
I send a shield there at the speed of awareness. She covers her head with her arms and starts to cry, pleading for her life even as the robot struggles to bring its arms down. Razi runs even harder. Diane slowly uncrosses her arms and looks up at me.
The robot brings its arms up, tries to look at me, but a flash of colour snaps it back to Diane. Brandon must’ve commanded it to kill her. And, for some reason, it tried to do something else. If I want this to go the way I’m imagining it, I need this thing to think it killed her.
I snap my fingers at Razi. He almost freezes in place. “Do these things have cameras or microphones?”
He completely ignores me and runs up to hug Diane. She breaks down and hugs him right back, but from where I’m standing, it doesn’t look like either side is putting any romance into it. Not really what I thought was going on, but hey, friendship is magical.
“Hey. Serious shit going down here.” I lean down to get in his face as the robot bashes away at my shield. “That thing. It got cameras, any recording software, or anything that’d report back to the big dipshit if it didn’t manage to kill Diane?”
“I… I don’t know!” He manages to eke out. “We don’t have the authority to even see those things, nevermind knowing how they work.”
Shit, that’s about what I expected. “Well, damn. The thing’s obviously programmed to kill Diane. Guess we’re just going to have to hope that it isn’t recording right now. Fleur! Can you murder this thing and make it look like that horde of elementals did it?”
Thorns of salt erupt from the wall behind me, skewering the robot hundreds of times over until there’s more hole than robot. Its fluid drains from the reservoir, and when the thorns retract, it crumples uselessly to the ground. From where I stand, it looks like the horde did everything they could to make it dead.
I nod to myself in satisfaction. “Perfect. If they manage to retrieve it, they’ll think it killed Diane and then got mauled by the elementals Brandon saw you leading in. …What’re you looking at?”
Both Diane and Razi stare at me with dumbfounded disbelief. Right; they’re ‘normal’ for people who got classes. They haven’t seen a shark-wolf worth a billion Worth, or a giant mech tear a hole in reality, or a salt elemental that seems way too overpowered for its restraint. Guess this is their first taste of the reality I’ve been living.
I pluck the second coin from a very confused Diane’s hand and force it into Razi’s. “Accept the spell, then give me the coin back. You two trust Call? With your lives?”
They both take a second to look at each other, then nod silently.
“Good. Find some way to contact him without anyone else seeing you, and tell him that he owes me big time.” I snatch both Diane’s and Razi’s coins back and squirrel them away with the other primed relocations. “In one week from today, he’s going to meet me near the site of the passenger dragonjet attack without letting anyone else in the Preservation know. Am I understood?”
Diane nods eagerly, a glimmer of hope returning to her eye. Razi watches her, then agrees much less theatrically.
“What are you going to do?” He asks, though it's curiosity that spurs him on, not worry.
I offer them a smile, even though it's hidden by my mask. “Saving both of your lives while making the Preservation think the exact opposite. Oh, right, tell Call he has to act like he confirmed both of your deaths. Otherwise it’ll be weird.”
“Okay!” Diane instantly agrees. “Thank you!”
I wave a hand at the approaching elementals, and five projectiles easily spring to life. They shear through the horde for a moment, then hang in the air as a deadly barricade between the Preservation’s people and death. Ursula might yell at me for this, but if Razi and Diane are right about Call, we might've just gained an inside eye on the Preservation. One that’s pretty damn high up in the hierarchy.
There’s only one place left to check now. And with relocations aplenty at the ready, now’s the time to see what’s at the bottom of that massive pit.