Arc 1 | Chapter 19: Fancy Meeting You Here

“You okay?” Mazi asked when Emilia fluttered back into her body.

She blinked sleepy eyes at him, rolling her neck and cringing slightly when it ached. She poked at her Censor, checking it for damage, then at the cage it had made for her new pet, looking for holes, before reaching her arms above her head and stretching. “Yeah~” she moaned, sighing back into the couch. She probably couldn’t sleep here. Probably.

“Is he…” Mazi trailed off, glancing towards the bartender.

He was a mess, drooling onto the floor, his eyes dead to the world. Mazi had straightened him out, turned him onto his side in case he puked.

“He had a virus inside him, an extra special gift from the dude he got the knotter from.” She glared at the bartender, her Censor poking gently at him. “I think the strain from the hacking broke whatever was holding him together, not that he was gonna last long either way. It was a mess in there. You should probably warn everyone off getting too personal with anyone else involved in this.” She sagged further into the couch while the bouncer swore, eyes glazing over as he contacted anyone else searching for rogue bartenders—and hopefully an enforcer, to get rid of the body as well.

It wasn’t ideal, for his brain to have completely shattered, but it was probably for the best. That moth had been self-replicating. She had taken a single copy, meant for her. There had been the potential for infinitely more within his mind. Had she not hacked him, someone else would have. They might not have been so lucky. The Club Cartel’s hackers were good, but she wasn’t certain they would have noticed their own tiny stowaways, and they definitely wouldn’t have been able to find the memories she had.

Another thing, meant to spread and destroy, and far worse than the knotter. Knotter’s might cause genetic problems and mental instability, but at least that wasn’t contagious. Well, it could be passed on to children, but that wasn’t quite the same.

The little moth most certainly was contagious, although she’d have to experiment to see just how contagious. Hopefully, not contagious enough that any connection between Censors was enough to transfer it. Probably not—nothing had happened when her own Censor had touched his, only the slight feeling that something was

wrong

. Better safe than sorry, though.

[

Em:

set up a cage, just like this

]

[Em sent {cage.specs}]

[

Rafe:

Done. Why?

]

[

Em:

catch

]

[Em sent {moth.v}]

A stream of curses followed, and Emilia fought down a smile. This was serious. A man was brain-dead, and who knew how many people he had affected with his knotters and virus. Still, it was nearly impossible to catch her friend off guard, she had to take a moment to pat herself on the back.

She peeked inside her Censor to examine her copy of the moth as she waited for Rafe to respond. It fluttered in its cage, looking at her with huge, assessing eyes. A quick assessment of it told her it had tried to reach out to someone or something numerous times since she had captured it—probably had before as well. Luckily, Mazi’s barrier should have stopped any attempts at communications or, at the very least, the bouncer probably would have felt messages passing through it if it hadn't.

What was more concerning, was the signal it was sending out. It wasn’t quite a distress signal, more of a,

“Hey, I still exist

” one. Which meant that whoever was meant to receive those messages likely knew something was wrong. There were few things that could interfere that completely with communication—even raids left a small gap for outside communication. Almost nothing took it completely away.

The moth flapped its winging and Emilia took pity on it, giving it a little plant to sit on. It wasn’t like it

needed

to sit, but it felt weirdly sentient and like it

wanted

to rest. What an impressive little AI, especially for how small its container and program were.

[

Rafe:

What was that!?

]

[

Em:

a cute little friend?

]

[

Rafe:

WHAT WAS THAT!?

]

[Em sent {bartender.mem}]

Rafe went quiet as he presumably went over the memories she had sent him. Pieces of what she had seen inside the bartender’s mind—censoring out the bits where her own mind had wandered into PTSD territory—and facts about Pria being dosed—censoring out her name and exact medical details, of course.

She and Mazi waited in silence for their respective contacts to get back to them. Military habit, perhaps. It wasn’t an emergency, so why explain the same thing more than you needed to. She’d have to tell the club’s enforcer what happened. Mazi didn’t need to hear it twice.

Rafe still hadn’t messaged back when the enforcer pushed her way into the room. Probably analyzing everything she’d sent him with a fine tooth comb, and she had sent him a lot.

The enforcer was a pretty, if intense looking, woman, probably approaching middle age, the lightest of wrinkles edging her eyes. She was tall—though not as tall as Beth—with reddish-brown hair almost the same colour as her skin pulled back into a stern bun at the base of her neck. Another vet then, most likely.

The enforcer eyed up the body of the bartender on the floor before turning to Emilia. “Explain,” she said, her posture falling to rest. Yeah, definitely a vet, and—

“Are you incapable of following orders?”

“I don’t remember ever signing up to follow orders.”

A smile. A slash of red and then blue, her slides activating and her unneeded babysitter’s eyes widening.

“Catch me if you can.”

Emilia’s eyes widened fractionally as she realized she knew the woman. Not well—she’d been unable to catch Emilia and her father had decided she needed a babysitter who could ride the slide lines just as well as she could—but enough that the enforcer might recognize her. Damn hair and eyes. They made it almost impossible to not be recognized, within the right context. Hacking into someone’s mind? Even just being part of the interrogation in the first part? Yeah, that was definitely the

right

context.

Fuck.

The woman, whose name Emilia annoyingly couldn’t remember, even her Censor was drawing a blank, listened as she explained the situation to her. She didn’t know what Mazi had told the woman, so she started at the beginning. Drugs and the shot. Her friend being dosed with a knotter. Tracking it back to the shot and the bartender. How uncooperative he had been, his bigotry and fraying mental status. Forcing her way into his head and the chaos she had found there.

The woman seemed to have known most of that, although she made no move to interrupt, nor to inform Mazi that she knew Emilia. Her gaze sharpened, however, when Emilia began detailing what she had found—or more specifically, not found—within the bartender’s mind.

“I took a bit of data,” she said, checking to see if her Censor had made any progress on deciphering any of it yet. Nope. It had confirmed it was safe, though. No funny moths to be found within it, and she offered a copy to the enforcer. “I wouldn’t recommend going back in. It was collapsing as I left, and that virus is definitely still floating around in there.”

The woman nodded, accepting the bit of data. Her eyes glazed over for a moment, then she was turning back to the bartender. “We will dispose of him.”

“Well, that’s good because I definitely wasn’t,” she couldn’t help but tease. The enforcer glanced back at her, something between amusement and exasperation caught on her face. Probably a good thing that, with the angle, Mazi hadn’t been able to see that look. He definitely would have known he was missing something. He wouldn’t have asked, but he would have known.

“May I have your contact information?” the woman asked, not bothering to turn back to Emilia as she pushed herself off the couch, groaning as her muscles readjusted to the whole standing thing. “In case we find something.”

“Sure,” Emilia said behind a yawn, throwing her contact info to the woman and receiving a contact in return. Sasha, it read. No last name, and she might not remember the woman’s name—it had been over five decades ago, okay?—but she was pretty sure it hadn’t been Sasha.

“Thanks,” she mumbled before breaking off into another yawn. Fuck. As much as she wanted to go check out the building where purists had been meeting, she didn’t think she had it in her to go tonight. Not that she could go alone—she wasn’t that stupid. Close, but not quite.

Not anymore, anyways.

“Oh,” she added as she made her way towards the door, “you probably shouldn’t let him out of this room until he’s dead.” What a polite way to say,

“You should kill him before you remove him from the room.”

Sasha looked back to her expectantly.

“The virus inside him. I’ll look at it more later, but it seems like it was sending information back to someone. No idea who.” She nodded to the blurry, black barrier surrounding the room. “Hopefully, that stopped whatever it was sending in here. Until he’s dead, though, letting the barrier down might allow that information flow to return.” She shot Mazi an apologetic smile. “They might have gotten your picture, from when you brought him up.”

Mazi huffed. “Yeah, that was always a risk. Maybe I’ll luck out, and they’ll just assume I was a lackey, pulling him off the floor. I put a blocker on his eyes, soon as I could, by the way. So as long as nothing got out of here, you’re good.” He smiled slightly at her, apparently not too concerned with his own safety. That was probably reasonably, given the Club Cartel would protect him—you didn’t retain loyal employees if you let them get fucked over for dealing with your problems, after all.

“Thanks,” Emilia said. It didn’t mean she was completely in the clear—whoever was behind this could have the resources to put it together that she was involved, if the bartender had seen Pria before being ripped away from the bar—but she was definitely in a better position than Mazi. “Take care of yourself! I know this would have become a problem for the club eventually, but if you get whacked because I brought it to you, I’ll feel bad!”

Mazi’s smile widened. “Don’t worry too much, sweetheart,” he laughed, giving her a wink. “I’m sure I’ll be getting myself a nice, intrusive bodyguard from the club pretty quick.”

“Yup,” Sasha confirmed, not bothering to turn from her investigation of the bartender’s body. At least she had the courtesy to wait until Emilia left to dispose of him.

Emilia laughed as she skipped the rest of the way to the door. The world spun slightly, her brain twitching as it adjusted to the reality that it had a physical form again. “Maybe you’ll luck out and get yourself a sexy bodyguard,” she teased, nodding cheerfully to her friend before turning “See you later, Mazi!” she called as she left the room, giving him a cursory wave.

He waved absentmindedly, his attention focusing fully onto the bartender and the enforcer. Well, maybe more the enforcer. She did seem like she would be mean in bed. Emilia could not be mean—it was why she and Mazi would never work. She was soft and useless. Bratty, but definitely not mean. Mazi wanted someone to take over, to make him. Emilia wanted that, too.

The world spun a bit more as she pushed her way through Mazi’s barrier and out of the room. She groaned, rolling her shoulders and neck out again. Her neck—the pockets at the base of it, where her Censor was installed—burned slightly, and she cringed, wishing she had grabbed another canned drink, if only to have something cool to press to them.

She sent a cursory ping out to Pria as she left the hallway of private rooms. She assumed her roommate had left, picked up the redhead or someone else for the night.

A moment later, a ping came back, vague details about an address burning red across her Censor. Redhead it was then.

“See you tomorrow!”

she cheered back, not expecting a reply and getting none.

Now what, was the question. She really did want to check out that purist place, but alone? While tired? That seemed stupid, even to—

“Whoops, sorry!” a voice she definitely recognized said as she walked into their chest. They had been simultaneously turning a corner and crashed into each other—her trying to get out of the club, him trying to get in. “Ah, Emilia.”

She stared up at her classmate. Blinked at him twice and then raised an eyebrow. “Quite the coincidence, running into you here, Payton.”