Part IV

The Headhunter

From the passenger-side window, Tasìa watched the asphalt roll by them. They came upon a tall mound of mud that for more than three hundred yards obscured the pathway back to the highway.

They slid side-to-side for the entire time that they crossed over the mound.

Once passed the mud the Jeep evened out. Annebél sighed in relief.

"I really don't like seeing my sweet bitchin' ride get dirtied up like that."

The current part of their trek was a roadway of recently constructed vintage, created by the Manifest. It had an entirely different feel than a normal highway. A stabilizing grip on the tires caused the steering to both tighten and smooth out in feel. Likely the result of the fungi's spongy interior.

Tasìa leaned her head out of the window as she peered back to the Palace of Lies.

As she expected, it could not be seen from the highway given its subverted design.

"You seem a tad apprehensive." Annebél observed once she had the Jeep aligned properly on the long stretch of straight roadway, and her steering no longer called for bare-knuckled tense reaction.

She's sending feelers out, Tasìa thought. And the last thing she'll tolerate is pity from me.

Tasìa considered what she should say as she nodded. "I likely should be more concerned about getting back to Asunción more than anything else but something else has been weighing on my mind."

Annebél's head jerked up and to the side. Her brows and eyes, as they set upon Tasìa seemed to say, level with me.

"Spill it. I'm a big girl."

"The bargain that you made with Bajamutté, was that above all other factors key to your sexual maturation? Did he do something to make that transformation possible?"

Annebél nodded and affirmed with a curt yes.

"Damn." Tasìa whispered not so silently as she closed her eyes.

"Is there a problem?"

"So, it is most likely that my own improvement occurred due to his intervention than anything that I myself accomplished?"

Annebél's frown lines creased.

"What are you getting at?"

"I stabbed and maimed the Silent Dragon when he stood in my way to get to you."

Annebél's lower lip dropped as she spoke.

"You defeated the Silent Dragon in close-quarters combat?"

"Maybe you didn't hear me, I had a blade in my hand at the time."

Annebél chuckled at the utter moxie of Tasìa's answer, but then she shook it off and cleared her throat to make room in her affected disposition for a sincere sounding question.

"So you are afraid that in his retribution, he'll take away your sexual maturation?"

"Yeah. That scares me more than getting my ass kicked when I see him next."

"If we make it back to Asunsión's resonance zone, he has no power there."

Tasìa sighed.

"Demona and I, we left his body on the entrance steps of the palace -," from the back seat, Demona corrected, "Replica, dear."

Tasìa continued, "- replica. He was no longer laying there a sad-looking dragon-man corpse by the time we all left together. What if he has already nullified my capacity for good, clean sex where I don't crap myself?

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"I can't go back to that way of life. I'm almost thirty-three. For the first time in my life I feel something close to being complete as a woman."

With a lopsided smile on her face, Annebél shrugged and made a wiggly v shape with her index and middle finger.

"You can check right now if it is worrying you so much. At least you'll know the answer."

Tasìa chortled, uncomfortably, as she squirmed in her seat.

"Woah. I'm not doing THAT in here."

Annebél smile now filled the creases in both her cheeks. Obviously, she enjoyed the discomfort she caused Tasìa, and Tasìa was uncertain whether or not vengeance for a previous slight was at play.

The brawler continued:

"Hey. No judgment from me, of all people. Go ahead, it'll only take a few seconds. Dip your hand in the honeypot and see what happens. At worse, we'll have to stop and grab you a new set of clothes from the Quick Boutique."

Tasìa raised her voice. Not happy her friend wasn't taking her fears seriously.

"I said I ain't gonna!"

Showing surprise at Tasìa's show of emotion, Annebél dampened her own giggling laughter.

"Easy, easy there! You have nothing to worry about, at least for now. If your intestinal and vaginal nerve cluster configurations, and your basic biochemistry are commencing such a drastic change, you would definitely have felt it happening, already."

Before reacting once more, Tasìa considered for a moment what this meant. Annebél was deflecting from her own painful experience by teasing her.

"Did you have a set back?" She asked.

Annebél grimaced and her eyes bounced about as she scanned the highway ahead of them.

"Oh, yeah. Bajamutté most definitely made sure I learned my lesson about rebelling against his wishes."

Back inside the Asunción city limit they rode in silence for several minutes before Demona spoke up. Her face was once more on the rear-camera visual display embedded in the driver's side console.

"For the final destination, I am moving the setting for the meeting slightly up the street by a few blocks. My agent has informed me there has been a slight complication, and she'll have to inform you of it directly."

Tasìa felt compelled to peer back at the virtualization of Demona. The spy sat with her hands folded between her knees. Tasìa thought it apparent that something the spook wasn't sharing was making the woman anxious.

"Your agent? What's the problem?"

"I was going to have her meet you behind the resonance cage, er, the garage where my PA melted, so she could disarm the security system.

"But while waiting there for you to show up for the rendezvous, her fellow Spook Town residents became concerned with her unknown whereabouts.

"Now, someone is searching for her. Would you mind, Tasìa, taking care of that problem? You have a knack for that sort of thing.

"My agent can't afford to do it herself as it would raise questions about her loyalties."

Tasìa shrugged.

"How long have we been keeping her waiting?"

"A little over two hours passed the ETA that I gave her."

Tasìa thought she likely knew who this person was. The other two ladies she met did not seem the side-hustle type, but Alisha?

All freakin' day long that woman hustles.

"Tell Alisha that if she can procure some coffee to please have it waiting for me. Honestly, Demona, I have maybe at most a half an adventure left in me for the evening then I have got to crash."

Demona shook her head.

"I figured you would catch on eventually."

Tasìa chortled deeply. She thought of how she and Alisha met. There were reasons to assume the two, Demona and the American, were agenda-copacetic.

"I caught on the moment you said you have an agent in Spook Town. I assumed it was the one who asserted drive and initiative towards achieving a greater purpose, and not the ones that were bummed about being sidelined."

Demona nodded in approval.

"So, you do understand?"

Words from the video feed Felicité had shown her unexpectedly came to mind:

Tower Praxis is where idealists used to get sent when they needed to be broken in or have their careers bounced. Does the seismic level fuck-up known as Demona Heloïste mean anything to you?"

Tasìa nodded.

"I think I am getting the jist of what is actually going on. Tell me, I have to know, is Alisha one of the Amongst Us like some of her colleagues?"

Demona was silent for a moment as she squinched an arced frown.

"Wait? What do you mean? I don't quite get the reference. Do you mean those rumours that the Manifested walk Amongst Us, undetected?"

She doesn't know!

"You know that it is real and not mere conspiracy mongering, right?"

"No, I don't know that," Demona insisted, defensively.

But, you are a spook! Tasìa thought with a sense of exasperation creeping up her medulla oblongata. She decided to be more tactful than she felt.

"But, you are in a position to know, Demona. You frequently override live camera feeds in every region in the Quadra, right? Oddities must occur and have been seen by you."

Demona shook her head in a slow denial.

"Many oddities, though none that confirm that old rumour. That theory is considered an embarrassing example of mass psychosis that lead to deadly consequences. The very reason the Salvage was instituted to bring order to this region.

"Tasìa, are you telling me you know something that is counter-factual to what is commonly believed to be true?"

She nodded without hesitation.

"Yes. I witnessed three of the men from the Flamenco Rosa commune transform in front of my eyes."

Demona shook her head, and gazed out the window as they turned into a street.

"We are close to the destination. I'll inquire and find out what I can. Tasìa, do you feel safe executing our plan without knowing that answer for certain?"

Tasìa suppressed a yawn.

"Sure. We need to get this over with just to see what falls into place."

They pulled into the rendezvous. It was a small house with a front porch.

To her surprise, Beauregard stepped out from behind the screen door. As he stood on the porch, he found her gaze, and returned with one of his own.

He smiled.