"I've uploaded my report", Mr. Ailworth said as he entered the office Mika sat in. It was entirely unnecessary information: she had gotten the notification two minutes ago and was in the process of reading it when he entered. Still, she wasn't unhappy to be interrupted: It was better to speak with him directly rather than read his report.
“Any problems?” she asked as she turned her eyes towards him. He looked tired. Very tired, like he was on his third day without sleep. She knew he was far too professional to complain about his fatigue, and she wasn't referring to that in the first place.
“Not directly, though her recent memories are at times so unbelievable I consider the probability of her memories being tampered with about equal to the probability that her memories are genuine..”
He put a hand on his forehead and grimaced as if suffering from migraines.
“You can’t detect altered memories?” she asked. While it was probably not a good idea to test the patience of a mind mage, it was really important to confirm this part.
“Every time you recall something or dream, you unconsciously modify your own memories,” Mr. Ailworth said with undisguised annoyance. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll retire for now.”
Mika simply nodded at that. The mind mage swiftly left the room.
The potential of mind magic was a separate course in the agent training, but she had rarely had any use for such knowledge and had understandably forgotten some parts of it. Thinking back now, she recalled something about mind magic’s limitations.
It was not possible to simply peek at someone’s thoughts: a mind mage needed a reference point in the target’s mind. Without a reference point, foreign thoughts were practically static — impossible to make any sense of. The most skilled ones could simply use their own presence as a reference point; in other words, the target had to somehow sense the mind mage himself. The more brutal, and more common, approach was to forcefully insert their own presence into the target’s mind. This was usually done when the target was asleep, thereby concealing it as a dream, though usually a bad one.
This was what Mr. Ailworth had done. Right now, Sanders and Robbins were taking Ivory back to her house, while Rocco was watching the house to make sure no one noticed her absence. It was unlikely, particularly since her children had been drugged, but they weren’t taking any stupid risks. Hopefully, Mr. Ailworth had successfully concealed his intrusion as a mere figment of her imagination within a dream.
Mika sat down to focus on the report again. She soberly read how, according to Ivory’s memories, the ‘Ancient Witch’, aka Mrs. Clover, had somehow transformed Harper into a girl, the one known as Tina, and served them a weird explanation about fate. Like Mr. Ailworth, Mika found this hard to believe, though she couldn’t discount the possibility. The report also noted that if someone had tampered with Ivory’s memories, Mrs. Clover was a possible candidate.
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Mika continued reading and quickly reached the point where they started observing her. From there onwards, her memories more or less aligned with Rocco’s surveillance report. Any tampering must have happened prior to this point.
She immediately made a note to more thoroughly research this “Tina”. They had not focused much effort on her prior to this since she had not been directly connected to Harper. If they could find any reference to her prior to this, they could disprove Ivory’s memories as false, and thus verify that her memories were modified. It may not even have happened intentionally: many mages unconsciously affected those around them, particularly before they were fully aware of their potential.
It was highly unlikely that Tina was the source of the tampering herself. As attested by Robbins, Sanders, and Rocco as well as Ivory’s memories, her mana pool was stifling — a clear sign she possessed no magic of her own. But Ivory’s memories contained something extremely peculiar: She honestly believed Tina possessed abilities that worked despite her own dampening field. This was outlandish beyond belief! The actual abilities demonstrated — the ability to guess what a conversation partner was thinking of — could be much better explained through mundane means such as good intuition and psychology.
The report also contained various other interesting pieces of information, such as her current relationship with a self-taught group of mages. When researching her, they had found a reference to this group in a report dated 20 years ago. But with no more recent information at hand, they had been unable to deduce that this group still kept in contact.
One of these originally self-taught mages was currently employed as an agent herself, but Mika had only gotten the message that she was ‘unavailable for the time being’ when she prompted her superior. This description was usually used for agents not physically present in this world; in other words, on a mission to one of the foreign worlds.
Finally, the report listed Ivory’s knowledge of Tina’s current location: hidden by another member of their group, Heidi Michakoliva. Michakoliva had intentionally withheld the information on where she would hide Tina. Interestingly enough, Michakoliva was employed by the regional office, which made finding her rather easy.
Their next logical step was to find Tina. Either she was the target they were looking for — Martin Harper — or she might give them a clue who had tampered with Ivory’s memories. If it turned out there was a rogue mind mage running around, the Council would need to be notified immediately.
Actually, the Council would need a report in any case, because if there were no mind tempering at play, the memories from Ivory’s mind would most likely be true. That was just as explosive information; someone hidden from the Council capable of completely changing a Veiled person, even requiring their permission, would greatly shake up the perceived status quo.
If Ivory’s memories were to be believed, this Mrs. Clover would either be living in an entirely new body somewhere now or be gone from the mortal realm forever. And, since she had done this several times before, it was highly unlikely she’d make a mistake that would link her new life to the former one. Even Walker’s mighty impressive detection spells could do nothing unless he at least had an inkling of what he was searching for.
A message popped up on her screen: Walker was requesting to see her immediately. She suppressed a yawn as she got to her feet. Normal work hours was not a feature of her line of work. It was almost five in the morning, and she doubted there would be any lengthy amount of rest anytime soon. She would undoubtedly be ordered to find Michakoliva immediately.