novelzi [326] 4.47 Uselessness
[326] 4.47 Uselessness
Renault leaves as suddenly and imposingly as he arrived, taking the other Seraphina with him. I’m curious what she sees in him; the two of them were far too intimate to be just colleagues, or a creation and its creator. Honestly, it reminds me a lot of the original Seraphina and Madison. I’d add ‘or Chloe and I’, except that that Seraphina’s whimsical, free-spirited attitude is far closer to the Original Seraphina’s than it is to my own.I’m standing absolutely stunned. For all that I’ve heard about Renault and how supposedly monstrous he is, his actual attitude is far more genial than I would have expected out of a dictator. Honestly, I’m not sure how we’re not all dead. Hank doesn’t seem all that confused. Chloe is completely fatigued, Alicia looks about ready to faint, and Clara looks indignant, as though she’d just been personally insulted.
“So that’s it?” Clara says. “You’re just going to stand there and let the two of them fly off?”
“If you’re in such a hurry to be separated from your life, by all means,” I say. “I don’t think they’ve taken off just yet. But just know that all five of us together wouldn’t have stood a chance against Renault alone, and that Seraphina is even stronger than he is.”
“So, he just gets to fly off?”
“Unless you have a better plan,” Hank says. “Some hidden superweapon you haven’t employed until now? Maybe you’ve contracted for the service of a dragon or maybe made a pact with an angel or demon?” The way he says it leaves me uncertain if such things would even be possible. Then again, the existence of some sort of [Summoner] class would be well within the bounds of what I’d expect from the System.”
Clara just shakes her head. “I liked it better in the old world, where criminals were placed under arrest and then found themselves taken into custody and dealt with in the justice system in accordance with the law.”
As though the so-called ‘justice’ system ever administered anything of the sort.
“That world is dead and gone,” Hank says. “Make whatever peace you still need to with that fact.”
Clara looks even more pissed than before, then her eyes drop. “I need to see to it that all these Legion associates are brought into custody and are properly interviewed. For now, I’ll be taking my leave.”
She raises her hand, at which point, a distant light turns on. She heads over toward the plane without saying another word, just leaving our family out here in the humid midnight over the fields of eastern Missouri.
“So, what are we going to do?” Alicia asks. “Gonna be several hours by car to get home, I have to assume, not to mention I don’t know where the hell we actually are. I hope you have an actual plan for this, dear, and aren’t just playing this one by ear, too.”
Hank just smiles. He walks over about twenty paces and pulls a full helicopter out of his [Inventory]. “We’ll take this.”
“You have the ability to create a full-sized helicopter, Hank?” Alicia just rolls her eyes. “Just what have you been doing these past few months?”
“I’ve been–” He closes his eyes. “I’m sorry, Leece. I’ve been trying to stay in contact with you and our daughters, but it’s been difficult. Every move I’ve made has been scrutinized. You saw how quickly Renault showed up once I finally did make a move.”
Alicia crosses her arms, her voice dripping with venom. “It’s time you told me everything. No more ‘I can’t right now’ or ‘I’m only doing this for your own good’. We already saw how well that worked out, now didn’t we?”
Hank opens his mouth as though to object, but no words come out of it. His hand,briefly raised, lowers. “Of course, Leece. I was already planning to take Sera and Chloe. I suspect it’ll be safer there for you as well, all things considered. Now, shall we be off? It’s going to take several hours to get there, and I’d like to be there by dawn.”
Just as the eastern sky at our back begins to shift from dark to light, Hank lowers the copter and we begin to descend. Based on the speed of our travel, the new maps I’ve seen in recent days, and our previous location, I think we’re somewhere in the Rockies. The high elevation, thinner air, colder temperatures, and rugged landscapes, dotted by high mountains in the distance, all give credence to that opinion.
Chloe is currently sleeping; she fell asleep shortly after takeoff and has been out cold ever since. My lap is currently her pillow as she lies curled up against me. So cute, so wonderful, so calm and relaxed. I can’t help but smile and run my fingers through her hair as she rests.
In contrast, I’ve hardly gotten a wink of sleep all night. I’ve tried to close my eyes and rest and meditate and everything else I could think of, but it’s been pointless. My mind keeps rushing back to the battles from earlier today. How I was so completely outclassed by Daryl. How, even with my [Overlimit] and all my training, all my levels and Skills and abilities, even with Chloe’s spells enhancing me, I was only able to fight to a draw.
The [Crimson Heart] had a complete end-around to my [Defiant Spirit], and very nearly cooked me from the inside. Yes, I won that skirmish and gained something for my trouble, but it shouldn’t have been a battle at all. I should have just instantly broken those chains and crushed that secondary failsafe the moment it triggered, and yet, I failed in that regard.
And then there’s Renault and the other Seraphina. Compared with either of them, I’m less than nothing. Even two on one with Chloe and I against Renault, we’d be outclassed even more thoroughly than we were against Daryl. We live only because he didn’t want to kill us.
Lastly, the other Seraphina. She and I should be the same. Renault even said we were ‘like sisters’. Interesting phrasing— it suggests we’re both daughters of the original Seraphina, rather than being copies. I suspect that may be true. And she said that Chloe ‘seemed familiar’, which only bolsters my conjecture about her and Madison.
The problem is that her power is two leagues above my own. Clara suggested level 85. But that power I sensed… I’m not sure if it’s quite at the third ascension, but it’s pretty damn close in either case. Just what did she go through to get so much stronger than I am in so short a time?
It infuriates me, and the combination of my anger and frustration keeps me awake even though my more rational self knows I should be trying to get a bit of sleep.
The copter touches down in what could only be described as the middle of nowhere. No roads, no signage, no signs of a mad scientist’s laboratory. Not even the subtle ripples that I would have felt if we were encroaching upon a dungeon entrance. Just nature, untouched by humanity, as far as my eyes can see.
“Well, we’re here,” Hank says.
“Chloe?” I whisper through our bond. “It’s time to wake up.”
Chloe clings around my waist. “Five more minutes, Sera.”
I sigh. Is there anything I won’t do for Chloe? Probably not. Rather than continuing to wake her up, instead I unstrap the harness around her and pick her up out of the chair. She was fine carrying me around earlier, and I have no compunctions about lifting her into a bridal carry as we make our way to wherever it is we’re headed. Right after a quick kiss on the cheek, of course.
Mom and Hank— still not ready to call him ‘Dad’— look at each other with a teasing expression. Don’t really care right now. I’ve done far more to her and I’m sure they both know it.
“So, I’m guessing there’s a reason why you’ve brought us out here to the middle of nowhere?” Alicia asks.
Hank places his hand on the copter. Shadows emerge from his palm, covering the entirety of the device in unnatural darkness. Then, in a blink, space ripples and the entire copter disappears from whence it came.
“How did you do that?” Alicia asks.
“Pretty easy,” I say. “I could do it too, except that I’m currently holding your sleeping daughter. Get to Level 50 and so will you.”
“I figured all that leveling and fighting and combat stuff was just a pain in the ass,” Alicia says. “It wasn’t for me, I’d hoped it wasn’t for you and Chloe. Hoped and prayed that the both of you would see reason and come back home where it’s safe. Guess that was all just wishful thinking on my part.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “It was something I’d felt in my bones since the day the System arrived. It all felt so natural, like I’d been through it all before. Only later did I learn that some part of me actually did. For fifteen years.”
“Fifteen years?” Alicia asks. “What was it like?”
“I don’t remember. I only have small snippets of that life. Little pieces of my past life, somehow encoded into what Hank refers to as the Seraphina data and I know as ⸢The Anomaly⸥. And if my theories and observations from the past day are correct, I’m not the only one who’s been encoded with data from another world.”
“What did you do to our daughters?” Alicia asks. “And who gave you the right?”
“I did what I did to give Sera and Chloe an opportunity for a future. To give them the chance to give us all a future.”
“You… experimented on our children?” Alicia slaps Hank. “I’d say you ought to be ashamed, but really? Shame is too good for you!”
“It’s alright, Mom,” Chloe says as she stretches her arms and wakes up. She doesn’t seem interested in getting out of my arms; considering how she is only tightening her grip around my waist, I have the feeling I’ll be carrying her for a good while longer.
“Alright? Look, I’m an oil and gas consultant. The extent of my experience with data collection and experimentation concerns running simulations of oil and gas extraction processes. Sometimes analysis of potential and likely reserves. But even I know basic experimental ethics. You know, informed consent? Sharing the decision making with your wife? The mother of your child? Surely those words mean something to you. They better fucking mean something to you, or I swear to God I will–”
“I will give you a full and exacting detail of what I did and why, but now is not the time or the place. Come with me inside and I promise, I will explain everything.”
“Inside? There’s no inside!”
Alicia is a complete wreck and seems on the verge of collapse. Nor can I blame her, after everything she’s gone through. I’d offer her some comfort, but I’m pretty sure there’s nothing I can do, and I’m not nearly confident enough in my social skills to try. So instead, I say nothing.
Hank, on the other hand, reaches his hands on a large white stone on the side of a fairly steep hill. More of his shadows move about, slinking underneath the stone and carving their way through the impossibly-thin slit between the stone itself and the dirt surrounding it until reaching a small crevice I can only barely make out with [Valkyrion’s Perception]. There’s a button inside, which he presses.
For two seconds, nothing happens. Then the ground rumbles. A large chunk of earth rises out of the surrounding ground, mud, grass, and all, revealing something mechanical buried within. An air-locked door, surrounded by walls of metal, not the marble-white stone lining the cliffs off in the distance. Wherever we’re headed, the technology and the security is of the highest order.
Hank places his hand on the panel beside the door that looks like it opens a safe and not a laboratory. I expect more shadows, but instead, just stillness. For a moment, I think fingerprint scan, until I realize that it’s much more likely to be measuring Hank’s [Ether] signature. A lot harder to spoof, and very unlikely to result in false positives… or negatives, which feels like it’d somehow be worse.
Then the door opens, revealing a staircase descending into the underground. “Come along,” he says. “We have a lot to discuss, and we don’t have much time in which to do so.”