Serah’d pulled half of the curtains closed and was seated opposite to where her chair might usually be, watching what looked to be some sort of three dimensional hologram of an occupied classroom as it slowly rotated on her desk.
“Will you tell me if that is Kim Audria Torres?” Her back was still turned but she’d pointed at a tall brown haired girl chatting next to a group near the back.
Tentatively, Ed pulled up a chair. “I mean, her hair’s a little longer but it certainly looks like her.” He could have sworn she’d moved districts. Though, and now that he thought about it, Mr. Garry was the one who’d told him that, wasn’t he.
Serah touched a corner of the room and spun the model to bring Kim to their side. She made a stretching motion with her hands and it appeared to zoom in. It was followed by a short tap and what looked to be a student ID sprung up next to her head. “That is what the thrall network confirms, but it is off profile of Pastor Mittel Harris to send a ward back into adversarial territory, especially after week 12.”
“Am I able to touch this?”
“Yes. You may.”
Kim was seated at a desk now and seemed to be writing something. He tried doing the sort of stretching motion Serah had done and after a few fumbled attempts managed to get it focused on her face. He turned it a little.
“Her piercings are gone too. That’s weird. I’m pretty sure she liked those a lot, are you sure this is her?” After learning homunculi, changelings, even mimics among other things were actually a thing, Ed didn’t exactly want to throw anything out the window.
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“That is what I am asking, yes. Would you be willing to go and ask her what she wants?”
Well, Serah had been nothing but helpful. But just to be sure, “It won’t be like, dangerous or anything, right?”
“You do not have to, I have been watching her for a week and when Tamtilus comes back he will scour her mind. Though, to answer your question; she would not have passed through the wards if she was of any danger to the people here, including you.”
“Wait, um, back up a bit. Could you maybe just hold up on the, uh, scour her mind part?” If he was thinking the same spell she was thinking, that didn’t sound very child friendly. “Only if she’s not some freaky doppleclown or something though, yeah? Look, whatever it is you’re trying to get out, I’ll probably get it out just talking to her.”
Serah scratched out something on a sticky note and handed it over. “Who she is, who she was sent by, though do remember it was probably the local inquisitor branch, and finally what her plan is. It is not time sensitive, she is regarded as a non-threat and this is in fact not strictly necessary.”
Ed hesitantly scooped up the note before shoving it in his pocket. “Alright, sounds good, I’ll do you a solid here.” He was pretty curious what Kim was doing back anyway, and to be honest, while it was true he hadn’t actually attended any of his old classes, he felt a little guilty about the fact she’d been at school for an entire week now and he’d somehow missed it.
“Can I ask why?” Ethics aside, if someone was snooping around his secret base he probably would have had the same sort of initial knee-jerk ‘mindscour’ reaction after all.
“Due to your previous adverse reactions to, plans to attempt to take that into account have been made. In other words, killing humans with a connection to you is now no longer a something we'll do. Or so Mr. Garry instructed me to say. The exact instructions are more detailed, but that is the summary.”
Huh. Well that was a relief.
Ed rolled his chair to the door, then put it next to the bed where he'd found it. "Right, well. I guess I'll get out of your hair now."