Chapter 96

Upon returning, Michael found himself swamped with work. His sister had rushed to him, telling him that Old Dave had gone into an anomaly and that she was worried about him. When she saw Michael’s puzzled expression, she quickly explained herself.

“Johanne said it could be bad,” she explained, “but you know her… she doesn’t care about most things. She said it’s his business what happens to him.”

“And you care because…?” Michael inquired, his tone laced with curiosity more than anything else. Travis, who had accompanied him, snickered.

“Because you care about him?” she retorted. “Because he looks after our parents? I hate them now, but I don’t want someone,” she leaned closer, whispering, “like him,” she pointed at Travis, “looking after them. I don’t know what he’d do to them.”

Michael hummed. “He wouldn’t do anything,” he reassured her with a chuckle.

“If you say so,” she shrugged. “But it would be bad if Old Man David died or went missing, no? You better go check up on him.”

Thus, Michael made his way to Redbud Ridge to get a status update from Bob. Both Old Dave and Jennifer were inside, while Trevor was otherwise occupied with something Travis had tasked him to do, leaving the former chauffeur as the highest-ranking operator in the city.

“Operator Technomancer is dealing with the digital fallout of the situation,” Bob informed them. “Old Dave seemed to think it would be a good benchmark for his capabilities before we sent him on bigger missions.”

Travis snorted, amused. “That man,” he muttered, shaking his head. “He really is worried.”

“What are you talking about?” Michael asked.

“Nothing,” Travis dismissed. “I just wanted to send Technomancer to Google to talk to them. And, while he was there, to hack into their systems.”

“Uhm,” Michael started.

“I know. I know,” Travis conceded. “It’s not ideal, but we can’t buy Google yet, not until we have a lot more money than this. And threatening or trying to swindle tech bros with money is never a sure deal. Better to just get into their systems, you know?”

Michael opened his mouth to retort, but was stopped by the shorter man lifting his finger. Travis was wearing a black tank top that revealed his enormous tattooed arms, as well as sunglasses, making him look like a gangster rather than the scary head of Candle Light. At least, this was how Michael saw him, but everyone else around them—Bob included—didn’t seem to agree. They were wary of the man.

“Listen,” Travis explained, “it’s a strategic asset like no other. If you control the search engine that five billion people use as their only gateway to access the whole internet, you basically control the world. Do you want me to show you the data I found about how search results influence—”

“Not now,” Michael interrupted. In fact, not ever. Old Dave was here for that exact reason, to allow Michael not to worry about stuff that was clearly outside his expertise while being sure their interests were aligned. “Talk to me about the building.”

What followed was a quick briefing, filled with somehow already filled-up CL documents cataloging most of the building’s properties. Old Dave had come out, alongside most of the team and some rescued people, and had gone back inside soon after. In the interim, Travis had gone to the Valley and pored over the data together with Johanne’s pet project Icarus and had updated all Candle Light files and protocols. The guy was a machine. A scary machine, at times.

“It’s actual magic: mana, a lot of Space element, plus a touch of Qi,” Albert confirmed. Travis diligently took notes. “No ancestral magic at all. This was caused by the dungeon’s mana.”

Travis nodded. “It is as we expected, then. The dungeon is beginning to cause problems.”

“Speaking of the dungeon,” Michael stated as Travis beckoned him back to the car. Old Dave was surely going to be fine, the Fleeting Man assured him, and now that he had seen with his own eyes, Michael could confirm that the building wasn’t too dangerous unless someone was careless. Which his old mentor was not. “Are people still affected by it?”

Travis nodded. “They are, but some of them are already building up resistance to what we have come to call the dungeon’s gaze. Soon, we will be able to separate the weak from the strong and proceed to the second floor with more teams.”

Michael nodded. Over the course of the next few days, protocol was drawn up as the building efforts at Site 00 continued with speed. Old Dave popped out of the building every couple of days, but kept returning every time, claiming that there were opportunities for him to grow in there. Although not quite like the dungeon, Michael agreed with him that the place was a good training ground. In fact, once they understood it better, they could use it to let the weaker operators who couldn’t withstand the pressure of the dungeon get field experience and levels.

Thanks to the mana in the air, the expanded house was like a mini dungeon itself, and the people of the city were quickly warming up to their presence thanks to both Travis and the communication expert’s efforts manipulating public opinion, and the fact that Candle Light and Unity did a lot of good things for the city while they were there. Most of the city now worked for Unity, one way or another, and the fair wages and working conditions helped a lot. It was barely economically sustainable, and certainly not scalable on a national scale, but profit had never been Unity’s goal.

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Surprisingly, Travis was perfectly onboard with this. What he and Michael disagreed about were the methods to achieve what “was for the best of humanity”, but with Old Dave taking Michael’s side the majority vote always allowed Travis to realize when he was overstepping his bounds. That, or Michael’s veto powers did.

“Travis respects your strength,” Old Dave advised him. “You better make sure you’re always in the lead.”

Michael scoffed at that. He wasn’t stupid. Well, not anymore at least. He was always going to make sure he was in the lead. One way or another. He just hoped he never had to do it the other way. With his Unity skill currently capped, he needed to find a way to push past the bottleneck or one day people were going to catch up to him.

In the end, it wasn’t before a full week had passed that Michael felt ready to challenge the fourth floor of the dungeon. During this week, he spent a lot of time in the real world compared to his usual Valley-real-world split, managing everything. He talked with all the people in power within his organization, getting to know them better and finally playing the part of powerful, present, and likable leader. A lot of people came to him with ideas, but he learned his lesson quickly and started redirecting them to the relevant departments within Unity rather than helping them himself. Unless he cared about the idea enough to spend time on it.

One such idea was studying the [Ghost Market] skill. That’s how he ended up with Johanne in a half-built lab full of scientists who, instead of looking at him in awe or admiration or even fear, looked at him as if he was a lab rat to dissect.

“Do not mind them, my lord,” Johanne reassured him, completely in her element with her white lab coat. “They are mostly neurodivergent. You must learn to communicate with them at their level.”

Not one of them seemed offended by this. Michael found it funny how Johanne classified others as neurodivergent while ignoring her own quirks.

“Now, Dr. Eleanor Vance has been tasked with studying the fractal shapes you provided us. He thinks he has made some headway.”

“Thanks,” the man in question responded, staring at Michael in the eye with an intensity that rivaled that of [Presence] itself. “We are studying the [Ghost Market] skill fractal diagrams you provided us, although you should really invest in a drawing skill for next time.”

“Focus,” Johanne admonished him.

“Sure, boss,” he conceded. “We are trying to mimic some parts of it to create useful infrastructure for Unity corporation. One such thing would be a shared storage space anyone can access. Another would be a shadow network. Both are features of the skill, after all, with how it handles materials and connections to markets. Too bad the programmers are lagging behind on their part of the project.”

There was a round of hums and nods.

“In any case, Johanne informed me that one of your goons got the common skill stone [Drawing] from the dungeon. You should absorb it now that you have the space.”

Michael looked at her. Johanne shrugged. “I told him he had to ask you himself, and he did.”

It was Michael’s turn to shrug. “Later.”

“Thank you,” the man stated. “Be sure to upload the new drawings to Unity’s network. Icarus, however shoddy—”

Johanne growled.

“I meant to say that Icarus, with its exceptional capabilities, should be able to handle the simple task of notifying me as soon as you upload the file. Right, Icarus?”

A beep came from the researcher’s pocket, where his phone vibrated meekly.

In the next few weeks, Trevor took Jennifer’s place exploring CL-018, the expanded building, while the woman flew non-stop, crisscrossing the globe multiple times.

“She must have accumulated a billion flyer miles by now,” Michael joked.

Travis was dead serious. “We need to cement the idea that Candle Light is a net good for the world, beyond just handling supernatural threats. Since you vetoed the direct manipulation of public opinion via Technomancer, and the efforts in Redbud Ridge are, frankly, laughable, I came up with another plan.”

“What is it?” Michael urged the man.

“Something that money can’t buy,” Travis declared. “Something that’s a net good for the world, like you so much like to repeat all the time. I’m talking about putting Jennifer’s ability to disappear materials to good use. But to do that, we need to either bring the materials to her or take her to the materials.”

Michael’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of materials?”

In his mind, they didn’t need to do anything illegal to further cement their company’s power. Not with the preparations to deal with the OA’s anomalous chest underway—which was plenty illegal by most standards, and quite unsafe even by nutjob standards. Clearly not enough for Travis’ standards to apply, though.

“Nothing illegal,” Travis assured him. “Well. Nothing too illegal. Mostly hazardous waste removal. It’s fine. It’s a two-way deal for us. To the public: we are doing good for the world, removing toxic shit. As for the illegal stuff? Imagine. Candle Light becomes the go-to agency to quietly disappear all sorts of stuff. Can you imagine how many favors we can accumulate just by taking care of people’s dirty laundry?”

“Fine,” Michael sighed. “But I want the ability to veto things I don’t like.”

“Sure. Business as usual, then,” Travis agreed. “By the way, I want to do more. Did you figure out if the dungeon goblin is okay with us dumping stuff in the dungeon?”

“There doesn’t seem to be a reaction,” Michael admitted. “But do we want to poke the beast?”

Travis hummed. “Maybe later, when you reach Gold. I’m putting this on hold for now. Even with just Jennifer, though, Unity might become the largest waste handling company in the world. We are switching up Jennifer with Trevor, though.”

“Why?” Michael questioned.

“[Ghost Market],” Travis explained. “Jennifer’s range is limited, and her ability is too flashy anyway. We want to use it in a controlled place where it’s just us. Now, this plan is only possible thanks to the Technomancer manipulating the algorithms to make sure nobody can buy the stuff before we do. Trevor’s mission will be to go to the site, use [Ghost Market] to put the waste for sale, Technomancer’s algorithms buy it back for delivery to a safe warehouse, Jennifer goes there, the stuff goes poof. He’s an old man, this is a better use of his abilities rather than have him fight in the house.”

“Isn’t he already working?” Michael asked. “I saw him running around Site 00.”

“Yup,” Travis confirmed. “David put him to work selling the goods our troops are scavenging in their runs and the non-magical gems the golems unearth. It’s netting us a small fortune.”

“A lot?” Michael pressed.

“A few percentages of the estimated Candle Light monthly budget,” Travis clarified.

“Huh,” Michael acknowledged.

Being in the real world helped Michael’s mental state. He felt much more grounded, and the feeling that reality was beginning to slip away from him faded to the back of his mind. Even better, spending a few days without constant action allowed him to realize that now that he had dealt with all the threats surrounding him, he wasn’t as much in a hurry as he thought. Things seemed to have stabilized.